Secret of the Silver Bow Part II: Fire and Ice
by To Thine Own Self Be True101
Summary: Shamrocks idea of Christmas is avoiding Apollo, a little hunting, and maybe some cookies. His holidays don't usually consist of going back in time because a certain god handed him the scythe of time. Oh well, nothing's been normal lately
1. We Get a Farming Tool for Christmas

**Okay well this is a bit early but oh well. **

**Thanks to Sapphire for patiantly listening to all of this several times. **

**To Arabella for support from the other side of the world.**

**To Iris who put up with my talking to myself on the way to school most days. **

**To my sister and her best friend who reminded me that every writer needs a break. **

**I don't own PJO**

* * *

><p>Secret of the Silver Bow 2 – Fire and Ice<p>

One

_Some say the world will end in fire – Fire and Ice, Robert Frost_

We Get a Farming Tool for Christmas

Shamrock

Grace and I stumbled into camp, Percy trailing somewhat behind us. Our clothes were covered in ash, and we were dressed like we had come from a Society for Creative Anachronism meeting disaster. Grace had a cut on her leg that was wrapped using the cloth from then hem of her brown dress; I had a burn mark, and cut on one leg, also wrapped in a bit of fabric. Percy was wearing white 1800's style boys dressing gown, and was covered in ash he seemed okay except for the fact that he was in a dress.

It was difficult to think that if I were to have checked the time as we walked into camp they would have said, four in the morning on Christmas, just twelve hours after we left. I really should start the beginning though when we got this way by a not so innocent farm tool…

We had managed to go a whole two weeks without a life or death incident, really I swear to mother Artemis that we did. Then the winter solstice rolled around and the hunters were at camp. I had started traveling with them and since mom had to go to Olympus we were stuck (Note the _stuck_) at camp. I did however get to spend time with Percy and Aqua. We had gotten to know each other really well and were all down at the water simply enjoying each other's company. The solstice had been over for three days and it was Christmas Eve. My mom wouldn't be back until morning as she had some special hunting to do. I'm not sure what special meant or why it was any different from normal hunting times but it was important to her.

Anyway we were down at the water, and Aqua was riding her hippocampi way out over the water. Grace and I were sitting, talking and Percy was trying to see how far he could throw stones into the water. Things had sort of gone back to normal, but there was a bit of tension between me and Grace. Nothing new but I got really self-conscious when it was time to change the bandages on my wound (It would take weeks to fully heal) and I had to take off my shirt while she poured nectar in it. I kept reminding myself that she had seven brothers and seeing me without a shirt wasn't the weirdest thing she'd done, but it didn't really help.

"So, do you know what this whole, special hunting trip is about?" I asked.

"No but she does it once a year." Grace shrugged; she was in a dark green hunting tunic, like mine, her red hair blowing behind her in the light ocean breeze. She was happy, that much was obvious. "Zoe and Thalia know. It's her personal business and we just don't interfere."

"Hey guys watch this!" Aqua yelled, we looked at her, she was maybe twenty yards from shore, her hair whipping in the wind, and a smile plastered on her face. She started doing flips on the hippocampi and laughing.

"Don't fall in, you'll freeze!" I yelled.

"I'm a child of Poseidon I don't get wet!" She yelled back and continued doing flips on the hippocampi. Apollo strolled up, holding a large, ancient scythe, the blade was cracked but it seemed to glow with power. Unlimited power, and it scared me, a lot. He was grumbling to himself, so I could guess he was pretty upset I don't know why but, I stood up with the intention of talking to him.

"Shamrock hold this, I have to go talk to Chiron. Don't let go, it's sharp." He shoved the scythe in my hand, and with no explanation, walked towards the big house.

"I didn't know Apollo farmed." I said. Percy just gave me a blank look. "A long time ago people used scythes to cut their crops. The curved blade made it much easier to cut wheat." I explained. They all looked at me like I was crazy. "Look with Apollo it was study or go insane. I did a little bit of both."

"Okay, but why does Apollo have it?" Grace inquired, and then as though she was in a daze she stroked the scythes handle. It was wooden and very old; the blade had a nasty red substance on it that looked suspiciously like blood. "It doesn't really look like it was used for farming."

"I know." I said fingering the large iron blade it felt odd like time was slowing down around me. I let go and everything sped up, "Whoa, when you touch the blade time seems to slow down." I checked my watch, and Grace hers. Hers was five minutes ahead.

"That's odd they were in sync a few seconds ago." Grace frowned. I sat down next to her in the grass, still holding the scythe. The scythe got heavier and heavier. It had to weigh ten pounds, and to hold in one hand, by the base, was even more, but I did it anyway. That was my mistake (Okay so I made one, but I made it a whole two weeks!) I couldn't hold it and it fell, the blade cut my leg on the way down before resolutely lodging in the ground.

I let out a hiss of pain and Grace came over to look at the cut, her big error. Percy, hearing all the commotion came around to make sure everything was alright, his big blunder. At first nothing happened, then there was a cold, high, and cruel laugh and a swirling vortex of sand opened up from the scythe.

I was the first to be sucked in. It was like I could see myself going back in time; everything was in the fastest rewind ever. I saw my own birth slower though, an infant, me, lying in a patch of grass and looking up at Apollo, but there was something else, another infant leg was in the picture, Apollo picked me and the other child up. Then before I had time to comprehend the images time went backwards again.

Grace

Grace was the second to go into the vortex. She hoped Shamrock was okay, for her time went backwards at an alarming rate until 1910 then suddenly she had that all too familiar feeling of having her eyelid flipped up with a button hook, she winced and saw the factory where she would work. It's cold gray walls taking children in in the morning and letting them leave with less than ten cents for a day of work. She remembered the smoky smell and feeling of constantly being in a room that was on fire, then there was the day it was really on fire and she felt her throat burn. She remembered the constant coughing of the illness that didn't go away. Worse than all those things she remembered all her siblings nine and up going to the same sad, cold, heartless place she was and being able to do nothing about it. Torcher, pure raw agony. She wanted to scream but before she could, time sped up again.

Percy

Percy was the last one to enter the vortex. He saw his mom walking along the beach with him as a little boy; he was running and playing in the water. She smiled and called his name, he's sad they have to leave the beach but happy that they will be able to come back tomorrow. Then he sees just his mom, she's holding a newborn baby, and talking to him about all kinds of different things, but the baby him doesn't really listen, he just coos and points out to the water. Then he sees his mom walking with his dad, she had a small bump on her stomach that will someday be him. Poseidon tells her he loves her and to take care of Percy and then for the last time he turns and looks at Sally Jackson standing there. The last thing he sees is the day his mom met Poseidon, she is walking on the beach and sees a man holding a trident. She asks him about it and the connection is instant. Then time speeds up again.

Shamrock

I landed on the hard cold ground; all I could see is the sky and Grace. Grace, who was about to land on me. Before I could roll out of the way she landed on me. I groaned, she blushed and got off of me, luckily I was smart enough to roll out of the way before Percy landed on me too. I looked around, there was green grass everywhere and the sky was a stormy gray, I could hear the ocean smacking against something on the other side of a hill. I sat up.

"Where are we?" I asked. Grace was looking around her eyes wide.

"Ireland." She breathed, a few drops of rain came down on her face and she smiled like a little kid on Christmas. The rain started to come down harder, she laughed, but a few tears rolled down her cheeks and stood up. She walked to the top of the hill and grew silent. I motioned for Percy to come and we went to stand near her.

The Ocean was about 100 feet below us, a sheer cliff face went down to it. It smacked against the cliff sending and Ocean spray 20 feet in the air. I saw another hill to our left with a house on top of it. A woman was taking clothes off a clothes line; Grace walked up the hill towards her and froze.

"Shamrock." She said.

"What?" I asked coming and standing next to her.

"That's me Mam." She said.

"_Wha_t?" I asked her accent made it sound so, weird.

"You know mother." She whispered.

"Oh. Wait you mean we actually went back in time!" I exclaimed.

"Sham, I think that was Kronos' Scythe of Time." She said, I turned to look at Percy who seemed to be thinking.

"Bot how would Apollo have gotten a hold of it. The last guy to have it was Luke, after that it was destroyed. I think." Percy said.

"Who's Luke?" I asked.

"He betrayed Thalia, Annabeth and the rest of us and joined Kronos." He explained.

"What did Thalia have to do with him? She's a hunter she hates guys." I said.

"Um she didn't always." Percy rubbed the back of his head nervously. "She kind of loved him she joined after he betrayed."

"Oh." I muttered.

"Yeah she doesn't talk about it that much, or ever really." Grace said.

"Is this another thing that I should know but not mention?" I asked.

"Yes, it is." She said patting my head like a puppy "Now we need to find out how to get back to New York."

"New York?" I asked.

"We have to get back to the start just to get back to our time." Grace said. "But first we need to get into the village, and then we can get a boat."

"We're dressed like we belong in the twenty first century, Grace I'm sorry but we really stand out." I said.

"We clothes from the clothes line." Grace said pointing, the woman was back, the rain had stopped and she was hanging the laundry.

"From her, look she has a baby!" I said, pointing to the infant that came toddling out of the house, then another came out. "Two we aren't stealing from her when she has babies."

"That's my mother and that baby is me it's not stealing." She insisted. I looked at the baby she was maybe a year old with a bit of red hair on her head, the other baby; a boy had bright red curls. The woman picked them up and took them inside.

We ran up the hill and Grace grabbed a brown dress, two pairs if brown pants and a light blue shirt and white shirt. Then we ran down the hill.

"Okay turn." Grace said shoving our clothes in our hands. We turned and started to dress, I had no trouble getting the clothes on, if anything they were too big. Percy however was at least six inches taller than me and the clothes were a bit on the small side for him.

"Grace can we turn around yet?" I asked.

"Yes you can. Shamrock could pleas button the top button?" Grace asked. I turned and nodded, I buttoned her up and she turned around, the dress seemed to fit her just fine, the sleeves came to just below her elbows, the skirt was long and made for someone who would work on the farm. It was plain but somehow it added to Grace, she looked more, complete.

"Wow." I said.

"You should have seen my mother in it, she was beautiful, but she made everything beautiful. I'll never look like her." Grace said wistfully. "Come one now, we better get going; the town is an hour's walk along the cliff."

We fallowed the cliff and for a while we didn't see any civilization. Just the grass, the ocean and each other. Percy seemed to like it, he mentioned bringing Annabeth here. I know Grace loved it as she would just look out over the ocean, and stare at the green fields. Me it was okay, I guess but at this point I was so hungry, that I would have rather eaten then watched the ocean. I guess it was watching Grace that made my day. She was smiling, and every now and then she would stop and pick a flower, she could tell us what every plant in the field was and if it was edible.

"Now you don't sound the least bit Irish, so just let me talk and you stand there and act, um, like my brothers." Grace said as we came upon the town, I saw that most of the signs were written in a language I didn't understand.

"What language do they speak? It's Ireland, just an accent right?" Percy asked this comment earned him a smack on the back of the head.

"Well yes we speak English but the old Language, Gaelic is something else we speak and I suggest you hold your tongue, we don't like the English." She said. We walked into a tavern and I immediately felt better, everyone in here (All four of them) was odd.

"Percy," I whispered "We aren't the weirdest thing around here." I siad pointing to a guy who was at least six feet tall, a boy who had a scowl in his face and a little girl, Or I assumed she was little because she was only about three feet tall and a blonde girl who looked like she could kill me if she wanted to.

"Whoa did you see the big guy?" He asked.

"It's kind of hard not to!" I said.

"Excuse me." The boy said calling us over. We walked over to them.

"Yes?" I asked trying (And possibly failing) to mimic Grace's accent.

"Are you friends with that red haired girl?" He asked.

"Yeah, she's my sister." I said.

"Could you introduce me?" HE asked.

"Grace!" I called, she came running over.

"Yes Sham?" She asked.

"This is…" I trailed off.

"Artemis Fowl. This is my body guard, Domovi Butler, and his sister Juliette." He said pointing to the giant and the blonde. "And this is my friend Holly." He held out his hand

"Nice to meet you, I'm Grace, this is Shamrock and Percy." Grace didn't take his hand. I decided I didn't like this kid one little bit. "Now we have to go." She led us off but I thought I heard the one called Holly say;

"We go back in time and he _finally_ meets a girl he likes, and he will never see her again. Nice going Artemis."

"Those people we're weird." Percy said, as we walked out of the tavern. I sighed, clearly he had no idea what was going on.

"Percy those people time traveled they came from _our_ time." I said.

"Why didn't we ask for their help?" He asked.

"That kid looked like he was out to screw up history." I said.

"Oh, he did kind of look like the delusional criminal type, didn't he?" Percy said.

"Yes, nice to see you're observant." I said, Grace pulled us to a train station.

"Okay we need to get to Londonderry, as fast as possible." She muttered.

"Um we don't have any Irish currency." I said

"The pound, we were still using the British Pound. I have a bit, but only enough to get us to Londonderry." She said digging in her bag, and pulling out a few paper pounds.

"How old is that stuff?" I asked.

"Well since we're in 1895 it's quite new, minted last year." She said. I frowned.

"Why did you keep it?" I asked. She looked at me her eyes full of sadness.

"Shamrock when you lose something you loved, like your family, or your country, or whatever, you will hold on to it for the rest of your life." She said, I moved to hug her but she walked up the stairs. I sighed and fallowed her, Percy was chasing around a butterfly.

"Come on Percy." I said he nodded and we entered the train station. Grace was speaking rapid Gaelic to the man, he handed her three tickets and she came back smiling.

"Tomorrow, at five in the morning." She said.

"Five in the morning?" I asked. "Where will we stay the night?"

"Um, I don't know, I haven't quite gotten that far yet…" She said. We ended up spending that night in a barn, it wasn't a bad barn, but it was cold. We ended up sleeping in the hay loft, covered in, well, hay. Then the goats started bleating.

"This is going to be a _long_ night." I sighed.

Grace

Grace couldn't sleep, in the last four and a half hours she had been through a lot, she had to speak a language she had come close to forgetting and there was all that tension between her and Shamrock. She could tell that this trip was going to push her to the limits. She would have to spend time on a boat, and she got seasick, really seasick.

She couldn't help but look over at Shamrock, he seemed peaceful. He didn't have his scowl, which she had almost thought was just the way he looked. Of course every now and then he would sleep scowl, but other than that he seemed almost normal. He started to stir and then his eyes snapped open.

"Grace? What are you doing?" He asked. She felt herself turn a light red.

"Um, you don't scowl when you sleep. It looks, nice." She said. This of course brought a scowl to his face. She grinned.

"What?" HE asked.

"Nothing you just looked kind of… peaceful." She said and lay down.

Shamrock

My life sucks, it does, really. I get sent back in time, with Percy and Grace, sure Grace is helpful but Percy I'm not so sure about, and Grace had to be the most complicated girl in history. I sighed and lay awake for a while, soon Grace's breathing became even and I knew she was asleep. I stood up and looked out the loft window.

The town was dead, everyone was asleep and I got the feeling that I was the only one in the whole town who was awake right now; I stared up at the sky, where I could see the Constellation _Scorpios _that wasn't right. It should be Orion.

"Grace, wake up!" I hissed she sat up and rubbed her eyes, I led her to the window.

"What is the point of this?" She asked. I pointed.

"Scorpios isn't due for months!" I said, she bit her lip.

"We must have been brought back to July!" She siad, our breaths made little puffs in the air.

"July?" I asked.

"I told you Galway got cold." She said. I shivered.

"I didn't think it got this cold." I hissed.

"Well it does, goodnight." She said.

"Night." I whispered and closed the window. I lay back down but not before wondering, what my mother was doing.

2012

Artemis was not having a goodnight, there had been a disturbance in nature and she didn't know what it was but something was wrong. She looked down at Sirius, He whined the harsh Connecticut cold was getting to him; she sighed and started to set up their camp.

Within an hour she had a fire going, Sirius lie down next to it and let his fur warm up. She set up her tent and then sat down to sharpen her arrow heads. About half way through this process she sighed and turned around, to find her twin standing there.

"Hello Apollo." She said. "May I ask what you're doing here?"

"Um there's been an accident. Shamrocks gone." He said.

"What did you do?" She growled.

"Um, now you have to promise you'll be calm." He said.

"Apollo." She growled. "What did you do to my son." Her voice was deadly calm.

"Um I handed him the scythe of time just for a few minutes and when I came back I found it imbedded in the ground and Sham, Grace and Percy were gone. Aqua told me the scythe cut Sham and imbedded in the ground then they were gone." He said.

"You gave my peril prone son the scythe of time? How are you the sun god, you're clearly not that bright." She said looking up at the sky.

"Arty, I'm sorry, he'll come back, he's smart." Apollo reassured.

"Yes but by then what will he have done to history? She asked.

"Um, I've been trying not to think about that." He said. She sighed and sat down.

"Apollo who is his father?" She asked. He sat next to her.

"I can't tell you." He said.

"Why? Why can't you tell me? For the same reason you didn't tell me I had a child!" She yelled tears brimming in her full moon eyes

"Arty, I'm so sorry but I can't for reasons I don't know how to explain." He said.

"I don't want him to live like me, hating the father who was never around, cursing the father that didn't love his mother, and blaming himself for all the family problems he has!" She yelled.

"Oh Arty, he can't really do that because, his father's dead." He said.

"Then I ask you this again. Who is he?" She said slowly, speaking like he was three.

"Artemis, even I'm not a hundred percent sure, it could be anyone, all I know is his father's dead, and has been dead a long time." He said. "Aphrodite knew but she-"He was cut off as Artemis teleported to Aphrodite's house.

"Aphrodite!" She yelled. Aphrodite opened the door.

"Oh Arty honey, come in. Now what can I help you with?" Aphrodite asked motioning for Artemis to come in, she did and sat down on the overly fluffy, pink couch.

"Who is Shamrocks father?" She asked.

"Oh, that's not important." Aphrodite said. "What about him and Grace huh, they're soooo cute!"

"It's important to me! Wait what?" She asked.

"Oh I was sure you knew, Shamrock and Grace had a bond." She said.

"Oh that, whatever. It's not important. Now who is his father?" She asked.

"Arty, Arty, Arty, you know that." She said.

"No I don't and no one will help me!" She said weakly.

"Yes you do, think Arty, think about it." Aphrodite smiled,

Artemis paled. "You mean?"

"Yes Arty I do, now what else can I help you with? A makeover perhaps?" Aphrodite held up a massive makeup kit.

"Nothing. I have to go, bye!" Artemis stood and ran out the door. She ran up the side of Olympus and into Athena's palace.

"Oh Hi Artemis what do you need?" She asked removing her glasses.

"Um do you remember when I was little and you used to tell me about all the stuff in the underworld form that giant scroll?" Artemis asked.

"Yes but what does that have to do with anything?" She asked.

"Well I need that scroll and the one about what happens if you mess up history." She said.

"Oh you need _The Complete Inventory of The Underworld_ and _The Complete Guide to Time Travel." _Athena said.

"Yeah sure that." Artemis said.

"What for?" Athena said.

"Um Well Shamrock went back in time (Long story) and I have a pretty good Idea about his father (Don't ask please)" She said.

"Oh um, just give me a minute. Come on." Athena led her into the library, which was four times the size of the throne room on Olympus.

"How do you find anything?" Artemis asked.

"It's organized alphabetically by author, topic and date published." Athena said. "Like the Dewy Decimal System but more advanced!"

"Why did I ask?" Artemis sighed.

Shamrock

I woke at four thirty in the morning to Grace shaking me. She motioned for me to wake Percy, I did and we walked towards the train station.

"Okay we have twenty minutes." I said. I looked at the crowd of families, many had children with them, one little blonde girl was crying, and several babies were wailing. The train pulled up and we were herded on.

Inside it was loud and stuffy, we had found seats and sat down as fast as possible. Grace's face was pale and she looked like she was going to be sick.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Just remembering, there are parts of my past I wish to be forgotten." She said.

Grace

Grace was remembering her journey on this train and all the fear it put in her.

_ The train whistle blew and she and her family were shuttled on the train, she had the baby in one arm and was holding a little girls hand and three other little kids were holding on to her skirt. There weren't enough seats for them all, so Grace stood with the baby, and her twin brother. Her twin brother was holding another baby and the hand of a two year old. _

_ Their mother sat down and pulled a little girl, around five onto her lap. Their mother is tired and their father is trying to handle five little boy's at once. Grace is terrified that they will get lost or hurt, the crowd is big and loud and these people don't care if one child gets lost they're all too busy keeping hold of theirs._

"Grace. Grace!" Shamrock snapped his fingers in front of her face, bringing her back to reality. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, just, remembering." She said.

Shamrock

Honestly I was starting to worry about Grace. I knew this whole, back in time thing was stressing her out, and causing old wounds to re-open but she seemed more distant than ever. Like she had some deep buried guilt that she hadn't thought about in centuries. Percy didn't seem to care though he was watching the Irish country side go by and waving to a group of centaurs. I leaned against the train wall, I we had two hours until we got to Londonderry, I could get some sleep…

_I was in the middle of the forest, not that new, but what was odd was the scene in front of me, Apollo was holding two small bundles and talking to Poseidon. _

_ "I can take the boy but not the girl!" He hissed._

_ "Why not?" Poseidon asked._

_ "I can't tell you I just can't have them together." Apollo answered_

_ "What about Artemis she has always wanted a daughter." Poseidon argued._

_ "She can't care for either of them." Apollo said looking down at the two babies._

_ "I suppose you can't tell me that either?" Poseidon sighed, Apollo shook his head. "Very well I'll take her, what's her name?"_

_ "She's a new born, she doesn't have one." _

_ "Does the boy?" _

_ "Yes, Shamrock Orion Clover." Apollo said, I realized with a start that one of the babies was me _

_ "Then her, name Is Lilly Calisto." Poseidon said that name was familiar but before I could place it I was awoken. _

"Sham, we're here. Let's go." Grace said, I stood up and we filed out of the train and into the town. It was a dull gray rainy day, as it often was in Ireland, and I was miserable, Grace however wasn't she seemed to like the rain.

"How are you so happy, it's pouring?" Percy said, he may have been water resistant in the ocean, sea, pool, or toilet (Don't ask) but this was rain and it was hard, ice cold rain and we were soaked to the bone. Grace's brown dress was stuck to her and her red hair was plastered to her head and down her back.

"I'm not happy I just like the rain!" She said. I couldn't help but smile, she was enjoying the rain. I had never seen her like this.

"Why are you smiling?" Percy asked. I looked at him, his white shirt was stuck to him and his cotton pants were soaked, his black hair was wet, in other words he looked like an idiot for not being under cover, but then again so did I.

"She's smiling. She's never this happy." I said.

"Well I'm happy when I'm not covered in hay and rain." He grumbled I rolled my eyes and jogged ahead to where Grace was.

"So what's the plan?" I asked.

"Find some way to get money, and then get passage on a ship." She said we walked towards a tavern. Grace went up to the lady tending the bar.

"Sorry, lass you'll have to speak English." She said

"Oh, um okay then, we would like to work, just for a while, until we have enough money for passage on a ship." Grace said.

"How many?" She asked.

"Me and these two." She pointed to me and Percy.

"Very well, you work for me today , by helping me get the chickens in and serving all these people and I'll give you the money for the passage." She said. We nodded.

I can also add to the growing list of things I hate chickens. Grace got a job serving the people who came into the tavern and Percy and I were stuck with the chickens. Chickens smell, they are annoying and trying to herd them, in the driving rain is close to impossible.

Percy and I tried three different plans to herd them into the chicken coop. The first one was that we would run at them from both sides and make them run in the hen house. That one failed when we slipped on the mud and landed in the middle of them.

On the second try I shape shifted into a wolf and tried to herd them, like a sheep dog. I guess chickens aren't the same as sheep, and I didn't look enough like a dog to herd them, because they panicked and scattered. This only made the job harder.

The third try was to take brooms and push them one by one, this on should be obvious as to why it messed up. Chickens are fast and even with ADHD we weren't fast enough to catch them with a broom.

Finally we were forced to resort to picking them up one at a time and putting them in the hen house. After getting pecked and scratched several times I finally got the first one into the hen house. After that getting the other elven into the hen house was fairly easy.

We went in to the tavern and found Grace serving dinner to a family. We went to the owner (We learned her name was Mrs. Carswell) and told her we were done.

"What were you doing that got you this dirty? Really an hour and a half chasing chickens? I wonder about you two. Any way next I need you two to take this the garbage round back to the dump." She siad we nodded.

As it turned out "Round back" was a five minute walk down and dark shady alley, a fight with three boys who tried to rob us and then opening the heavy door of the "Dump" and putting the garbage. The dump turned out to be a compost pile, sorted into two piles 'horse manure' and 'garbage' we tossed them into the second pile and walked back to the Tavern.

Grace was not very happy, the men in this place were pigs and I wanted to kill them all. They called her names and I could tell she was going to lose it soon. I asked Mrs. Carswell to please make them stop and she siad;

"Oh dearie, tis all part of the business." Then she walked away. Next we were put to work in the tavern. Well, at the bar. If you've ever been called a girl when you're clearly not you'll have some idea of how I felt after I gave the first guy his fifth drink.

By the time the day was over I had to give Grace credit that she showed some seriously good self-control. If I was her I would have lost it, I got lucky the guy who thought I was a girl passed out in a half and hour after the fifth drink. Mrs. Carswell paid us and we went to a ticket office.

"Are there any tickets left on the _Anne Marie_?" Grace asked. The guy checked.

"Just three in third class," He said

"We'll take those. I'm Grace O'Donally, This is Shamrock O'Donally and Percy O'Donally, and we're all 15." She said. The man handed her three tickets with our names printed on them.

We sprinted towards the dock, which was a lot more difficult than it sounded. Grace was in a rain soaked cotton dress making it much harder for her, but she kept up. By the time we got to the docks we were exhausted.

The ship called the _Anne Marie _was a brilliant blue and red, it had the English flag printed on the side. It was very large and I could already see the first and second class passengers on board. The third class passengers were only just boarding.

There were so many, most looked like they were hoping for a better life, as though they had lived through something awful and wanted nothing more than to get away. I felt out of place, like I was too happy of something. I moved a little closer to Grace.

"Why are they staring?" I asked.

"Percy, he has black hair, can you see anyone else with black hair?" She asked. I looked around.

"No." I said.

"Well then there you go. You also are well fed and we're the smallest numbers here." Grace said. I nodded and jumped. I jumped because Grace had grabbed my hand. I couldn't help but turn a little red. "I'm sorry I didn't know it bothered you." She said letting go.

"No, it startled me, but I'm fine." I said.

"No really." She said pulling her hand away. I sighed, why did she have to be so difficult, Lilly wasn't this difficult.

"I was supposed to call Lilly!" I said, Lilly and I had been calling each other on a regular basis, of course whenever I tried Skype she was hunting or in the bath. She seemed to hunt and bathe a lot.

"Well don't worry I'm sure she'll understand." Grace said. She and Lilly had become quite good friends over the phone and would tell endless stories about my latest ventures (Just little things recently), and to think it's only been two weeks…

"Good." Percy said holing up a small cell phone.

"I thought we weren't allowed to have cell phones.

"It's Annabeth's and we don't get cellphone reception here." He said. Grace rolled her eyes.

"You stole your girlfriends cellphone?" Grace asked

"No! I barrowed it without asking so I could call my mom and I kind of, maybe, sort of forgot to put it back." He said. The line started to move at a snail's pace.

"Well she'll understand we don't get reception in _nineteenth century Ireland!" _Grace said. I couldn't help but wonder why she was so snappy. She was probably just worried Percy would screw up the time line with Annabeth's cellphone.

"God's I hope so." Percy said putting it back in his bag. Grace sighed and we started to move forward towards the boat. "You think they'll let me swim."

"Percy, this is an immigrant boat, not a cruise ship." Grace said.

"Oh so they won't let me swim?"


	2. In The Middle of The Ocean

**Okay hi people! So it's been a week and not one review, I know people are reading it! I saw the Hunger Games and cried during the reaping because I didn't see Prim I saw my little sis. :(**

**Thanks to Arabella for support from the other side of the world**

**To Iris for listening to the constant rambling**

**To Sapphier for actually paying attention to the characters and keeping whats left of my sanity there **

**To Bella for being the best sister in the world. **

**I don't own anything but the plot and any original Characters. **

* * *

><p>Chapter Two<p>

_Some say Ice – Fire and Ice, Robert frost._

In The Middle of the Ocean

If I had known how seasick Grace got I probably wouldn't have set foot on that boat and she probably knew that, so she neglected to tell me that little piece of information. I was up all that first night; alternatively hold back her hair and comforting her. We had three bunks hanging from the ceiling of the boat, Percy was on top, I was supposed to be in the middle but I ended up being on the bottom with Grace, I never slept ,she only vomited and slept a little bit.

"Sham?" Grace said weakly.

"Yeah?" I answered.

"I'm sorry, it will stop once I get used to the motion on the waves." She muttered.

"It's fine." I said, looking down at Grace, this was taking a toll on her, not just the seasickness but the back in time. It was like taking a knife to her heart. She was strong but I didn't know how much longer until she would break. I looked down at her but she had fallen asleep. I sighed, she had taken care of me when I was hurt and I would take care of her when she was sick. I started to shift my position but a sharp pain in my shoulder made me stop. The Bite. I hadn't changed the bandages in over twenty four hours, the infection was coming back. I couldn't move my shoulder without a sharp pain running through my body.

Percy climbed off his bunk and saw me lying with Grace's head on my chest. He looked at me and smiled, I grimaced.

"You okay?" He whispered, I shook my head.

"My shoulder is killing me." I groaned, Percy walked around to the other side of the bed, looked at my shoulder and grimaced.

"That's _not_ a good color." Percy said.

"What color, I haven't looked yet." I said.

"Well it's the color of the eggs in that Dr. Seuss book _Green Eggs and Ham_." He came back around to the other side.

"Oh." I said. "What book?"

Percy shook his head and waved it off. "Grace knows what to do, I'm going to wake her."

"No," I insisted, wrapping the good arm protectively around Grace. "She just fell asleep don't-"But before I could finish I saw one green eye staring up at me.

"Trying to smoother me?" She asked.

"Oh, um sorry." I said. Grace got off the bed and looked at Percy.

"What's going on?" She asked. Percy pointed to my arm and I tried to hide it but the pain was too much. "Okay, um, Percy take a bucket, an empty, clean bucket and fill it with fresh water or if you can't sea water." Percy picked up a clean bucket from under the bunk and ran out. Grace put her hand to my forehead, then her cheek.

"Um, what are you doing?" I asked.

"Checking you for a fever. That's bad." She frowned, pulling back.

"What is?"

"You're running hot, too hot." Grace said.

Percy

The people in the galley wouldn't give me any fresh water to use so I resorted to Ocean Water. I would have to jump ship. Lucky for me, I could get back on. I walked over to the side, stood on the rail and looked down into the churning water.

"Daddy here I come." I said, quite a crowd was around me and they screamed when I leapt into the Ocean. I would probably be considered a juvenile delinquent. Again.

Grace

By the time Percy got back she was so worried she didn't even ask how he had gotten the Ocean Water, she ripped the hem of her dress and dipped it in the bucket. She still felt quite sick and seeing Sham's green and infected wound didn't make her feel any better.

He kept insisting he was fine and that she needed to lay back down. She called him a moron and put the cloth in the wound. He hissed in pain but didn't budge.

"The salt disinfects it." She explained to Percy who was looking a bit, taken aback. She dipped the cloth again and again. Each time he seemed to get a little better, and all the while she soothed him like she would her little sisters or brothers, stroking his hair and telling him he'll be alright. Finally she dipped the whole strip of cloth into the bucket and wound it tightly around Sham's arm. "There all done. How do you feel?"

"Well subtracting the intense pain you just put me through, quite good actually." He said, she felt his forehead.

"Well you're fever is subsiding." She said. "In a few hours you should be able to go up on deck." He nodded and lay down; in a few minutes he was asleep.

"What do we do about tomorrow?" Percy asked.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." She said. "Watch him I'm going on deck."

Shamrock

When I woke up Grace was nowhere in sight. I sat up and looked around; Percy was on the floor reading a book.

"Hey, where did she go?" I asked.

"Oh, Grace? Well she's on deck, has been for hours." Percy said. "Can you read this?" He handed me the book. "You're not dyslexic; I have no Idea what it says."

"Um Percy, this book is in Gaelic, _I_ have no idea what it says." I explained. "I'm going to find Grace."

"Okay." He said.

I found Grace in front of the boat letting her hair be whipped around by the wind, she seemed worried, and I went and leaned on the rail next to her.

"Are you okay?" I asked. She jumped.

"Oh Shamrock, you're okay." She said.

"Yeah, good as new." I said, she gave a small smile and sighed. "What?"

"Nothing I was just thinking." She said.

"About what" I asked.

"My family pennywhistle."

"What?"

"A pennywhistle is a small tin whistle used in Irish Music, my father had one and he got it from his father, and his father got it from his father and so on. It was always given to the oldest child, until me there had only been oldest boys. So it would have been mine, but then things went bad… after my mom died, and five of my siblings were killed in a factory fire he took the younger seven back to Ireland. I had joined the hunt and never saw them again. My aunt came to New York with my littlest sister, Aideen, she was five or six at the time, I saw her once when Zoe and I were in the city, she had my dad's old pennywhistle around her neck and then I knew he and the others must be dead." She said a tear rolling down her cheek.

"Grace I'm so sorry." I said.

"No it's fine, I need a hug." She sighed I hugged her. "Sham just because I said I _needed _a hug didn't mean I _wanted _one." I let her go and looked away.

"Beautiful." I said. "The Ocean I mean."

"Oh, yeah it is I guess. I only ever liked it when I was looking at it or listening to it, _not_ on it." She said sadly.

"Yeah I guessed you weren't a sailor when we stepped on the boat and you ran for the side." I chuckled.

"It's not funny when you're the one throwing up." She grumbled.

"Sure you're okay?" I asked.

"Yes, gods." She said annoyed.

"Okay." I decided it would be best to leave her alone, so I went back down to where Percy was.

"You okay?" He asked.

"Girls, I said the word 'beautiful' about the Ocean and Grace seemed a little let down. Now she's mad at me!" I said.

"I know the feeling Annabeth and I had a rough patch for a while. She'll get over it." He said.

"Yeah I know. It's probably just stress. It's can't be easy going back in time and reliving what she did before." I said.

"Yeah, I know the last thing I want to do is go back in time and have to fight Luke again." He said.

"What is it about this Luke guy?" I asked. I had heard a lot about him at camp and it was starting to drive me insane about how everyone else knew what I didn't.

"Well he was Thalia and Annabeth's friend, they were on the run together when they were little, Thalia was Twelve, Luke was Fourteen and Annabeth just Seven. Well He and Thalia had strong feelings for each other which would have no doubt developed into something more romantic, but they were being hunted, or rather she was. By the time they got to camp the monsters were almost upon them. She died, well was turned into a tree, and that messed him up. If Annabeth hadn't been so young she may have turned out like Luke, but any way, Luke was left to practically raise Annabeth and so his outlet was to challenge the gods. Basically he wanted Kronos to reign again and thought Thalia would agree, well she didn't and it crushed him so he gave no thought to becoming Kronos' host." Percy explained.

"Oh, that explains, a lot and the t-shirt that says I_ heart Connecticut._ Thalia hate's Connecticut." I said.

"Well yeah. Man I hate this boat." Percy said.

"Really?" I asked.

"Yep, there's a storm coming and it isn't going to be pretty, not to mention I hate being cooped up." HE said.

"Yeah, I hate this boat too." I grumbled.

"It's a floating hell." Grace said sitting down next to me.

"Wow, I didn't know you talked like that." I said, shocked Grace was so, clean, language wise anyway.

"Oh I can curse like a sailor when I have to." She sighed. "It's raining."

"I know." Percy said.

"I'll be right back." Grace said suddenly rushing over to the bucket and throwing up. It was going to be a _long_ night.

It was probably around four in the morning when I finally got some sleep. Grace had told me to sleep at around nine but the truth is I can't. I have a really hard time getting to sleep; I just want to go hunting at night. Before now I had never been able to explain it but now I know that it's the wild side of me trying to get out in a positive way.

A few years back when I was ten Apollo learned the hard way what happens when I get cooped up too long. It had been three years since my little hunting escalade and he had a tighter hold on me than ever. It had been six months since the last time he had taken me on a walk through the forest and I was sick of the house, so I had decided to have some target practice with his prized china. The china had the faces of different female celebrities on them and they were signed. Anyway he heard the crashes and came running down. I got in huge trouble and a walk every Thursday.

Of course I guess Morpheus wasn't feeling generous because I got fifteen minutes of sleep. I felt something small and warm lying next to me. I looked and saw Grace, with a start I realized I was still on her bunk. I moved very slowly so as not to disturb her but she woke and grabbed me.

"It's me." I whispered, she let out a sigh of relief.

"Okay. Sorry." She lay back down and I climbed up to my bunk. Soon I could hear Grace's soft breathing and knew she was asleep. Unable to get any sleep myself I climbed out of bed and went up on deck.

The storm had subsided and I could see a million stars, and the moon. I sighed and looked out over the ocean. It was beautiful. I looked up at the moon, my mother, who if by chance I ran into in this time period, wouldn't hesitate to kill me. It made it all the more important to avoid changing history, not only could this drastically change me, it could cause Grace her life. That was one risk I _would never_ take.

I heard Grace come up behind me, or sensed it. She didn't have to say anything; she just came up and leaned next to me. We stood in a comfortable silence for a few minutes before she spoke.

"Something's bothering you." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah, it's just this whole time thing. I'm just worried I'll mess it up." I said.

"You are pretty reckless." She said.

"Thanks. That makes me feel better."

"I'm sorry but you can be reckless. Remember in Volterra? The whole ripping him to bits thing?" She said.

"Your right." I said.

"You won't screw up." She said.

"If I did Lilly would kill me when we get back." I said.

"Only if I didn't throw you off the boat first." She laughed. I couldn't help but grin.

"Yeah only if you didn't."

"Sham, I believe in you, we can do this. The only trouble I can see is Ellis Island." She mumbled.

"Ellis Island?" I asked.

"Yeah they have a medical inspection, and at this point Percy is the only one who would pass, you have your bite, I have this horrible sea sickness that may or may not go away. Even if we all passed they wouldn't let us off the island without and adult male." She said. I put an arm around her.

"We'll be fine, now let's go its freezing."

We went back to our bunks but instead of sleeping I just lay on my bunk and though about what Grace had said. Was that really true? Well why wouldn't be, she had been through it not me, but maybe things would be different now it was after all 13 years before she came.

At around five in the morning the ship started to wake. The first families awake were those with small children or large families, one girl who looked to be about my age picked up her baby brother and went up on deck. The next ones up were those with children not so small but definitely between seven and nine. Last those with older children or those traveling alone were up.

I climbed out of my bunk and went up on deck, it was surprisingly empty except for the girl with her brother, and the small boy toddled up to me.

"No Jamie!" She said and scooped him up. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." I said.

"Are you sure? He's a bit of a trouble maker." She said.

"Yes really, how old is he?" I asked.

"A year and a half old, we're going to meet our Da and Mam." She said, her accent was thicker than Graces and her blonde hair was tied back with one red ribbon.

"Oh, I'm Shamrock." I said.

"Enya." She said. I heard music from above us and looked up. "First and second class decks. The parties hear are more fun."

"Parties?" I asked.

"Yes, just two days ago there was one, I left Jamie with my brother and came up to dance. Didn't you hear?" She asked.

"No, I got on in Londonderry." I said.

"Oh, I've been on since Liverpool, with my two brothers." She said.

"Both younger?" I asked.

"No one older and him." She said.

"Hi, Sham whose this?" Grace asked.

"Enya this Grace, my sister." I introduced.

"It's nice to meet you, Jamie, no!" This time Jamie had tried to climb Grace, she bent down and picked him up.

"It's fine Sham and I are the second oldest of fourteen." Grace said, smiling at the little boy.

"Where are you from? Shamrock said Londonderry." Enya said

"Well we're _from_ Galway Bay, we boarded in Londonderry." Grace explained.

"Oh, I'm from Liverpool, my Da worked as a government official there, but now we're off to meet him and Mam in New York." She said.

"Oh, we're Potato farmers." Grace said and soon they were of talking about stuff I had no idea about. Soon the deck was crowded with Children and I met Enya's brother. He was a huge guy for only sixteen and unlike Enya and Jamie his hair was very dark and instead of blue eyes they were Sea green. He looked like all the pictures of Orion I had seen.

"I'm Galvin, Enya's older brother." He said.

"Shamrock, Grace's twin brother." I said "You don't look like her."

"She's my half-sister, we have different fathers." He explained.

"Oh, I have thirteen brothers and sisters." I said Galvin gave a low whistle.

"Even my Mam isn't _that_ insane." He chuckled.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"My mam may not be normal but I doubt she could handle that many." He said. "She says odd things, mumbles about old sea gods and things."

"Oh, well my mom had the older four, and cousin Percy, he's a few years older than us so we can all help out." I explained, this was the story Grace, Percy and I had agreed on. He nodded.

"As much as Enya annoys me I would go to the end of world and back for her and Jamie." He said.

"Yeah I would do it for Grace and the others. They're in New York already and according to Mam they miss us all."

"I'll bet your Mam sure does, having twelve without help is not an easy task." He said.

"We wouldn't have been much help anyway; Grace gets sea sick when the Oceans are rough." I explained.

"I'll bet, we all do, have you ever held a vomiting baby on a boat while being knocked around like a sack of potatoes?" I shook my head. "Well I don't recommend it."

Grace and I returned to our bunks, Grace and I sat on hers and discussed ways to get around the 'Adult Male Policy.' So far the only thing I could think of was to swim off the island and according to Grace the only one of us who would make it even half way was Percy. Since I didn't want to drown I ruled out that plan pretty quick.

That night the Ocean got rough again and I spent the night holding Grace's hair up. Poor Enya was in a much worse situation she was trying to keep her little brother calm though he was throwing up. Whenever Grace wasn't vomiting she was lying next to me, trying to get some sleep, which meant I got no sleep.

Call me crazy but I hated every second. It was really wrong to be holding her so close to me, she needed the comfort tough and she hadn't been sick on me yet, though that could be because she hadn't eaten anything in two days. Percy and I had brought down some food from the mess hall but Grace was quite insistent on not touching it. I didn't know how she would go a few weeks without eating but she knew her limits.

The boat was rocking beneath us and the motion was enough to make even me a little queasy and I have the strongest stomach of anyone I know. Grace had been right if this was Hell I wasn't going. I tried to take my mind of the close proximity Grace and I were in by thinking about my mom. What was she doing? Where was she, and how worried was she?

2012

In our time almost no time had passed, save a few minutes that Artemis had spent traveling to her palace with the scrolls Athena had lent her. She was now curled up on her bed with Sirius reading through them.

Her bed room was like a forest, the walls were painted with trees, the four poster bed was made to look like tree trunks, the dresser an old hallow log, and the night stand was made of old ancient Greek wood.

Her hand absent mindedly stroked her Sirius, the little white dog looked up at her. He knew something was upsetting his mistress but he wasn't aware of what. He licked her hand, and crawled up to where he could see her face.

Artemis was reading a godly family tree. She had gotten to the most recent half-bloods and their parents, now she had only to find her name. What she saw appalled her.

"Apollo I knew I had one but this." She whispered, the door opened and her brother came in, Sirius yapped and ran to him.

"So you figured it out." He said.

"You could have told me." She whispered.

"It was for his own good, and yours." He said. Artemis laughed, not a nice laugh, an I'm-finally-going -insane-because-my-idiot-brother-pushed-me-too-far kind of laugh. "Arty, calm down we can talk this out."

"NO!" She snapped. "No we cannot! You take away everything!" Tears running down her face, something Apollo hadn't seen her do in a while.

"Sis, I-I'm so sorry." He said.

"Does she know?" Artemis said.

"Not unless Poseidon told her." Apollo explained.

"Good."

Shamrock

I woke to Grace bent intently over me. She was feeling my forehead and washing my wound, Enya sat at the foot of the bed her eyes wide.

"Why is it green?" She asked.

"Infection." Grace stated.

"Of what?"

"Things."

"Were these things venomous?"

"Maybe." Grace began to wrap the wound and I hissed in pain.

"That's really tight!" I said.

"It has to be, to keep out worse things." Grace whispered.

"What could be worse than that?" Enya asked now quite frightened and clutching her baby brother so he wouldn't get away.

"You'd be surprised." I said sitting up and looking at her. Grace rolled her eyes and said something in Gaelic.

"I don't speak Gaelic. I lived the last five years in England. Mam and Da never taught us." She said.

"How do you call yourself Irish?" Grace asked.

"My passport." Enya held up a small red book.

"Good point."

Percy walked in looking very wet and annoyed. He sat on the floor next to the bed and shook his head like a dog. Getting rain all over me and Grace.

"Well, it's really coming down out there; we are in for quite a ride. In the next hour we will hit the roughest patch of ocean I've seen and the only place I wouldn't rather be is in it." He said.

"How do you know the Oceans going to get rough?" Enya asked.

"A) I have mad skills on boats B) I just do." Percy said.

"Okay that's nice Perce but did you have to soak me?" I asked.

"Well sorry it's not like I could just make the water come off of me." He said. "Well not here anyways." He grumbled.

"Is he okay?" Enya asked.

"He's fine the rain just makes him a bit grumpy." Grace said patting his head like a puppy.

"Get off." He grumbled, ordinarily I would have snapped at him for being rude, but to tell you the truth we were all starting to get a little sick of each other, and according to Percy the voyage wasn't even half over. It's not that I didn't enjoy Grace's company but I needed my space, it's a me thing, I'm kind of anti-social, and that was something you couldn't get down here. Even Percy spent more and more time on his bunk and away from us as possible.

Percy was right. Within the next hour the boat was pitching back and forth. We did all we could to keep from rolling back and forth. Grace and I were holding on to our bunks for dear life and Percy was trying to stay on by rolling the opposite direction of the boat. It was horrible. I ended up landing on the floor several times and Grace landed on me even more. It hurt like Hades. We were bruised and battered.

Somehow Grace still had it in her to sing softly to herself. I froze and promptly fell off the bed on to the hard, dirty floor.

"Ow." I said. It was like the ninth time this had happened in the last two hours and to be honest I said it more out of surprise then out of pain, seeing as I was now so sore on my back I couldn't tell the difference. Grace seemed to be in worse condition then I was, she was now on the second bunk and fell onto me. _That_ hurt. "Ouch!"

"Sorry." She said and rolled off and I got up and climbed back onto my bunk, Grace came and lay next to me. "If you want me to move I will."

"It's fine. If you fall from that height you could break something." I said, I was a bit shocked she hadn't broken anything yet. She nodded and I moved over for her.

That night I got no sleep I was either being tossed around or lying awake listening to the other passengers. Percy had found us some food and I was sure if I got up it would come up. I could hear the blood pounding in my ears. It was agony.

After what felt like eternity Percy said the storm would stop soon and that it was dawn. I was relieved I didn't know if I could have stay like that for much longer. When calm seas came I saw that the hold was in an awful state, everyone was trying to locate their baggage because it had been moved from one side of the ship to another. People were checking through their belongings for things that could be broken.

Enya and Galvin were making sure their brother was okay, and that they had their things all together. Grace sighed and looked at them wistfully.

"I hope that baby will know just how lucky he is to have siblings like that." She said, I patted her back.

"He will don't worry." I said.

"We can't be their friends can we?" She asked.

"No I guess we can't." I said.

"I guess I always knew that but I didn't really want to believe it" She whispered.

"They're not from our time we're not form theirs. We can't befriend anyone who could change what we do." I said. She nodded as I looked through my pack to make sure everything was fine. Almost everything was, except for the ambrosia, it had been squashed and the bag torn open. "Ambrosia's ruined."

"What?" Grace asked.

"It's been practically ground into the bottom of my bag." I said.

"Okay so now we're really stuck, if we don't have ambrosia or nectar and we get sick we will be detained." She said.

"Now what are our chances of not getting detained?" I asked.

"Um, one in six billion." She said.

"Oh. I doubt we could manipulate the mist." I said.

"Why?" She said.

"Think about it, _some _of the gods might be in America but not _all _of them are, my mom for instance I felt her presence when we were still in Ireland, and Lord Apollo's was only there too so they haven't moved over yet if only Zeus has then there isn't enough mist _in _ America to manipulate." I explained, she bet her lip.

"Now our odds are one in seven billion." She said.

"Great." I said.

"Well it could be worse." Percy's voice drifted down from his bunk.

"How?" I yelled.

"We could be dead." He pointed out.

"Percy the gods aren't kind enough _to_ kill us. I lived through being bitten by a _vampire_ there if they aren't kind enough to kill me then, what makes you think they'd kill us now?" I asked.

"Um, our bad luck?"

"Percy at this point I don't think dying would be considered bad luck except for the fact that we would have stopped a chain of events from happening completely." I said.

"How?"

"Well Percy look around you. How much worse can it get after last night?" I asked.

"It could probably be worse." He said.

"No it couldn't get any worse than this." I said.

The rest of that day was calms and nice, Grace and I spent it up on deck. Enjoying the warm sunshine and the wind of the boat. That night it remained calm and I could see the moon and stars. They made me sad, and I felt more alone than ever. Grace came and found me sitting alone on deck.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

"I'm fine." I said.

"No you're not." She said.

"I miss her." I said.

"Your mom?" She asked.

"Yeah. I want to go home Grace." I said. I was sure I sounded like a seven year old but I had only just got my mom I didn't want to lose her now.

"I know, you'll get back, we all will. I know it." She said.

"How do you know that?" I said.

"Because Sham we were sent here by somebody, that couldn't have been a freak accident it had to be intentional." She whispered.

"But by who." I mumbled.

"I don't know, but I do know that there has to be a way to get back." She said. "Perhaps something we have to do, something we touch but there _has to_ be some way."

"Grace I have a question." I said.

"What is it?" She asked.

"What happened to your family?" I asked. She looked sadly down. "You don't have to answer. I'm sorry I'm prying!"

"No I've kept this secret too long." She said and looked out over the Ocean. "We had been in New York for about three and a half months; Mam was sick, really sick. Me and the rest of the older seven got jobs in a factory so we could make a small amount of money to keep us alive. Well one day we came back from the factory and Mam had died. Da became distraught and got tickets back to Ireland. Well on our last day of work at the factory one of the threading machines caught on fire, the factory made clothes so there was a lot of flammable material just lying around. Well it burned to the ground and my siblings who worked there all died, I was believed dead too so my Da took the younger ones back to Ireland but I wasn't dead I had been found by Zoё and I joined the hunt. I did it more out of desperation to get away then anything but I hated men. The man at the factory would hit us when we did something wrong. If there is one place I would never go back to it's there." She said a tear rolling down her face.

"Grace I'm so sorry." I said.

"Why? It wasn't your fault the factory caught fire." Grace said. Another tear rolled down her cheek. I wiped it away with my thumb and she gave me a weak smile. I looked over at a pair of young lovers maybe nineteen. They were watching the ocean, perfectly content to be standing there with their arms around one another.

"Grace?" I asked.

"What Shamrock?" Grace sighed standing hand up and holding her hand out to me. I took it and she pulled me up with surprising force. I looked at her; her face was bathed in silvery moonlight.

"Why do we go looking for love?" I felt kind of like a child asking something like that but I honestly didn't know. I was a child of Artemis don't expect me to know something like that.

"I don't know. Let me think about it." She said letting go of my hand and walking quickly back to the hold. I sighed.

_You **really** screwed up this time you idiot!_ I part of my mind screamed to myself.

_Oh shut up._ I said back.

_What if I don't wanna? _

"Just shut up!" I yelled. The young couple whirled around and looked at me. "Great now I look like an idiot talking to myself!"

"Man what did you say to her?" Percy's voice said from behind me.

"Why?" I turned around and face him.

"Well Grace is down there looking quite terrified of something." He said.

"How do you know it was me?" I asked.

"Well since there are no monsters on this ship and she _was_ talking to you, I kind of just assumed." He shrugged.

"Nothing." I said.

"Well you had to have said _something_. What else could make her _that_ upset?" He asked.

"Just stay out of it Percy." I snapped.

"Okay but we're your friends. You can tell us anything. Night Sham."

"Night Percy." I waved and he went back below.

I suppose he was right but I hadn't ever had friends so this was all kind of new to me. I'm a bit of a lone wolf and having people to rely on was new to me. I knew I had been rude to Percy but I was _really _stressed out. I looked the moon for a while longer before heading down to my bunk.

I could hear Grace on the bunk above me. She was awake and she knew I was awake but neither of us spoke to each other. I crawled in bed and lay down but it would be a long time before I got any sleep…

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><p><strong>What did you think, not bad if I say so my self. I'll see you next week in<strong> _On the Island_

~ HuntressofArtemis101/ Ginny


	3. On the Island

**Okay I know this chapter is really early but there will be two updates this week because I am going to be moving in like two months and unless I get the third one up as fast as humanly possible the third won't get done before I move **

**Thanks to Bella for inspiring and reminding me to take a break**

**Thanks to Sapphier for listening to me babble about this**

**Thanks to Iris for support**

**Thanks to Arabella for letting me babble to this over Email!**

* * *

><p>Chapter 3<p>

_ From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire _

_-Fire and Ice, By Robert Frost_

On The Island

Shamrock

Do you remember when I said it couldn't get any worse? Well I spoke way too soon. It did get worse a lot worse. However instead of giving you the long version I'll give you the short and simple one.

First we spent two weeks on the rough ocean being pitched back and forth 'like potatoes in a sack' then I got food poisoning and by the time we _finally_ arrived at Ellis Island I was so ready to be off that boat that I kind of started to act like a five year old.

Okay, so we were moving through the line inspection at a really slow rate. Grace was starting to freak out and rub her eye the closer we got to the man with the little hook. I didn't get it what was wrong with her? She was never like this, Grace never seemed so… weak.

"Stop that." I said taking her hand away from her now red eye. Her pupils were dilated and her eyes full of fear. Not just plain old fear more like fearing for her very life. It was weird because I had never seen her like this before.

"D-don't let him touch me!" Grace said turning and burying her face in my shirt.

"Grace you'll be fine I promise." I whispered. As we got closer it only got worse, her eye was dry and red from rubbing it and I could practically see every gear in her brain looking for an escape route. There were none, I had already analyzed that option.

"Is she okay?" Percy asked

"I don't know what is wrong with her, but she's freaking out." I said. Finally when Grace was next in line she was so scared I honestly thought she would pass out. "Calm down."

"Don't touch me." Grace said to the doctor.

"Now miss, just hold still this won't hurt a bit." The doctor said.

"Yes it will you OW!" Grace yelled the last part as he flicked up her eye lid and peered under.

"Go over here miss." He guided Grace to a line of people and marked an E on her jacket. "Now you." He flicked my eyelid up and Grace was right it _hurt_ like Hades. He ushered me into a different line and I turned back to him.

"Sir?" I Asked.

"Yes."

"Can I go with my sister?" I asked.

"No."

"Okay then." I said, Grace whimpered. "Don't worry I'll contact you I promise." She nodded and I walked off with Percy. A few minutes later we were separated from all the girls.

"Why do you think they did that?" Percy asked.

"I have some idea and I don't think we're going to like it much." I said. I turned out to be right a guy told us to take our shirts off and Percy shrugged. As soon as the doctor saw the bandages he looked at me.

"What is this?" He asked.

"Um, a cut?" I tried he looked at me and began to unwrap the bandages as soon as he saw how green the cut was he separated me from Percy.

I was lead into a hospital ward with seven other guys they all looked up at me, I gave a small wave and sat where I was told, which was in a crib. The guy next to me had an eye that was swollen and red; my cut had started to bleed again so a nurse came to bind it.

"When will I get to see my sister?" I asked.

"Tomorrow at breakfast, who is your sister?" She asked.

"Grace O'Donally." I said.

"Ah that one." She answered.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"She's been quite distressed, she won't eat or drink anything, and she just sits on her bed with her knees pulled up to her chest. I can't say it's too unusual I have had patents put up a fight and scream. What makes her case to queer is that she is so quite." The nurse said. "She's asked for you. I assume your Shamrock?"

"Yes can you tell me what happened to my brother Percy?" I asked.

"Well he's being detained in one of our… a… special wards." She said.

"What do you mean by special?" I asked.

"It seemed he jumped overboard saying something about his father, and later returned to ship." She said.

"Oh." I muttered. "What time is breakfast?"

"Eight." The nurse said. "Now do you mind telling me how you got this cut?" She asked.

"Um, I fell?" It came out more as a question then an answer.

"Okay then don't tell me but I'm smart enough to know that this is some kind of bite, looks oddly human, but it was no fall." She finished and left me to myself.

I have to say I thought the whole crib thing was quite demeaning. It made me feel more like I was in a cage then a bed and I hate cages. I couldn't sleep peacefully that night; I wanted to run as far away from here as possible. I didn't care where I went I just wanted to leave. As much as I didn't want to I couldn't keep my mind from straying to my two comrades. Grace was probably lying awake and Percy if he was lucky was asleep with no idea what was going on. Slowly as I thought over these things I began to fall asleep.

Grace

For Grace the experience was like her worst nightmare, in fact it was, being stuck here in a ward with nine other sick girls was what her nightmares generally consisted of. The girls all seemed nice enough, though only a few spoke English, one elderly lady had tried to get her to talk but she wouldn't. Grace couldn't seem to find her voice, the nurse tried to get her to eat, but she wasn't hungry, she didn't touch the water the nurse offered her. She simply sat on her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest, muttering under her breath.

She had also immediately decided that she hated the color white. The whole room was white, the paint, the base board, the sheets, her pillow, even the bed frame was white and she decided that she didn't like it at all. She would have preferred a little color, any color. Of course she knew this was impossible, they wanted to show off their cleanliness. She didn't really care how clean they were, being clean wasn't going to help her get off the stupid island.

One of the nurses had told her it was June third, not that Grace had really cared, and the date was just another thing that wouldn't help her get off this island. She didn't want to know the time, she didn't care about the nurses name, she didn't have to use the bathroom, what she _wanted_ to do was see Shamrock and get off this horrid island. Since that wasn't going happen she decided that it was best just to shut up and keep to herself.

When the nurse turned off the lights she lay down as she was told but she didn't sleep. Soon the sound of the other nine people in the ward changed to the sound of nine people sleeping. She didn't sleep at all though, she lie awake under the blanket. Her hair was matted and her dress was not the cleanest it had been, she didn't care though. She let tears roll freely down her face and wondered what Sham was doing. He was probably asleep, and dreaming, not caring about her at all. She shook this thought off; of course he cared he was her friend.

She rolled over and faced the wall she began to scratch away at the paint, just to give her something to do, but the paint didn't budge. She had no idea what she was supposed to do. So she lie on her side and silently cried, and by the time the nurse came to turn on the light she had cried all she could.

Percy

The doctors hadn't spoken to him once, even though he asked them several times why he was being taken away. Sham had disappeared a while ago and Grace even before that. He was led to a ward with a six others, all in cribs. He turned to the nurse but before he could ask why she said;

"Percy, this is your bed, you are going to be a good boy and not hurt yourself." She said. He furrowed his eyebrows. Why would he hurt himself? HE wasn't Emo like Nico or hell-bent on self destruction like Shamrock.

"I wouldn't hurt myself. What am I an idiot?" He asked.

"Of course not Percy now just get in here." She spoke like he was three and he sat in the crib, the nurse went over to the desk in the corner and sat down.

It didn't take Percy long to realize that he was in the mental defect ward, which made no logical sense. Why was he here? He had done nothing wrong.

"Ma'am." He asked. The nurse looked up.

"Yes Percy." She said still acting like he was three.

"When can I see my brother and sister?" He asked.

"Well if you're a good boy I'll take you to see them during breakfast." She said.

"Where is the bathroom?" He asked desperate to get out of the crib.

"Right over there, do you need help?" She asked.

"Ma'am I'm sixteen, I can use the bathroom alone." He said.

"Okay then." She let him out of the crib and he went to the bathroom. As soon as he was back he was put in the crib and the lights went out. "Good night everybody." Percy thought this was weird, it was only six.

He found it next to impossible to fall asleep it was bad enough to be in the wrong ward but a crib. Really? Come on he didn't jump ship because he wanted to. He figured it wouldn't matter though. The nurse had mentioned being out of beds and having to put others in cribs too. He lay on his side doing nothing. This was going to be a _long_ night.

Shamrock

I woke the next day to the nurse waking the others, I sat up and it took me a minute to remember where I was when I remembered I was in the hospital I sat up.

"Is it breakfast time?" I asked, I wasn't the least bit hungry I just wanted to make sure Grace and Percy were okay.

"Yes get up."

Grace

As soon as the lights snapped on Grace was out of bed and at the door. She pointed and the nurse sighed.

"If you want to see your brother you're going to have to wait." The nurse said she nodded and sat on her bed. It seemed to be hours, but in reality it was only about five minutes, until the others were ready, finally they were on their way to the cafeteria.

As soon as she saw Sham she ran up and hugged him, he was a little surprised to see her, he had his usual scowl on his face and his hair was a mess.

"Morning Grace." He said.

"Good morning." She said.

"Oh good, she can talk, I have to give you credit you can get a word out of her." The nurse said; Grace tensed.

Shamrock

As soon as the nurse was gone I hugged Grace back and studied her. Her eyes were red and she had clearly been up all night crying.

"I take it you didn't sleep well?" I asked. She shook her head.

"You have no idea how much I hate hospitals." She sighed, then Percy came up with a nurse guiding him.

"Are these your siblings?" She asked.

"YES!" Percy yelled.

"Can you handle him?" The nurse asked us.

"Yes Ma'am." Grace said. The nurse breathed a sigh of relief and walked away. "Where have you been?"

"The Mental Defect Ward." He grumbled.

"I don't think they call it that." I muttered

"Why?" Grace asked stepping into the breakfast line.

"It's kind of a long complicated story." He said. We were each handed a plate of bacon and eggs and we went to find seats.

"Okay we probably don't really want to know anyway Percy." Grace said. I took a bite and gagged. "Are you okay?"

"Worst food _ever_." I said,

"Is it really that bad?" Percy asked and took a bite. "It _is_ that bad!" Grace tried it and shrugged.

"It's not as bad as my cooking." She shrugged. I sighed, food was food. I took a small bite and decided that if I ate slowly I could do it. When we were done the nurses told us that as long as we were back by lunch we could go outside.

We went out into the court yard where a group of small Romanian children were playing under the watchful eye of one of the nurses. Grace and I sat on the bench and Percy went over to the railing and looked over the ocean.

The court yard was basically just a yard with some grass and a few trees. The hospital was a large brick building behind up and in front of us was a railing and beyond that the ocean. We could see immigrants standing on the deck of a boat and cheering. After a long painful voyage they had at last reached America.

"It makes me wonder." Grace said suddenly.

"What does?" I asked, she looked at me her eyes meeting mine.

"How many of them will never see Manhattan, how many will be turned away, how many will be detained for who knows how long and then released." She said.

"I don't know Grace, but we will get off this island, I promise." I said.

"Shamrock, don't make promises you can't keep." Grace said, and that had to be the worst thing she could have said to me right then and there.

"Don't you trust me?" I asked.

"I wish I could Sham but the truth is I don't know how to trust anymore." She said.

"Then let me teach you." I insisted.

"Sham you don't get it, you've never had your family ripped from your hands, you've never had to trust the untrustworthy, you've never watched your family burn over and over in your nightmares." She stood up. "I'm going on a walk." She walked away slowly and I walked over to where Percy was and sighed.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"Percy, how do you teach someone who doesn't know how to trust to trust?" I asked.

"I don't know. Why?" He asked.

"Because Grace is way too cautious, especially around me." I said.

"Sham no offense but you're a little reckless. Try being careful and maybe you can gain her trust." He suggested.

"Name one time I've been reckless." I demanded.

"Well you insulted the Volturi, you launched recklessly into battle against the head vampire, before that you picked a fight with Artemis and then a week later you picked a fight against Nico." He counted on his fingers. "You _are_ too devil-may-care about things."

"Gods, I asked for _one_." I said.

"Well sorry but maybe you should try cautious this time around." He walked away.

"Careful, I can be careful." I said. I heard a sigh behind me and turned a girl was looking at me. "Can I help you?"

"No." She said.

"Will you please stop staring?" I asked.

"No."

"How old are you?" I asked.

"No." Then it occurred to me that the only word she could say was no.

"Bye." I said.

"No." The girl smiled and I decided to walk away. I found Grace sitting on the steps of the hospital seemingly lost in sad memories. I sat next to her and didn't say anything, she knew I was there and I took a bit of her red hair in my hands.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"Braiding your hair." I held up my work which was a not too pretty braid. She laughed. "What?"

"You're awful." She said.

"I thought I did a good job." I mumbled.

"Okay I'll give you credit, it was sweet." She said.

"Thanks." I smiled.

"Hey guys." Percy sat down next to me and smiled, he was soaking wet.

"Where have you been?" I asked.

"The fountain." He smiled.

"Well dry yourself they'll keep you in the Mental Defect Ward if you come in like that." Grace said. Percy snapped his fingers and he was suddenly dry.

"There you happy now?" He asked.

"No. Not really." Grace said.

"Why, I'm dry." Percy pouted.

"Gods, Percy I can never be happy in this place." She said.

"Why? If it's because of the food I'm sure we could fix that." He said.

"It's not the food, it's being caged in. I hate it!" She said she was obviously very flustered, I sighed, I knew how she felt. The hunt was supposed to be free not caged and I was pretty distressed myself.

"I know but I told you we'd get out I promised you and I intend to keep that promise." I said.

"And I told you not to make promises you can't keep!" She snapped.

"What makes you think that I can't keep this promise?" I asked.

"Sham it's unrealistic!" Grace said.

"How so?" I asked, my voice rising a bit.

"Because Sham! We can't get off this stupid Island because we don't have anyone here for us!" She yelled I stood up and so did she.

"Why do we need someone?" I yelled.

"Because it's the law you idiot!" She snapped.

"So! When has that ever stopped me?" I asked.

"That's the problem you're way to reckless, last time you could have gotten us all killed! This time you could get us wiped of the face of the planet!" She yelled.

"What makes you think I would do that?" I shouted. This was turning in to a full out fight.

"Easy if you haven't noticed you have a tendancy to come inadvertently close to destroying you self and others!" She insisted.

"No I don't!"

"Yes you do and not to mention you take pleasure in insulting figures of authority!"

"How so?" I yelled, we had now drawn quite a crowd.

"Easy you insult the gods on a daily basis and don't even get me started on last week's incident with Chiron!" Grace yelled.

"That was _his_ fault! He wanted me to come to archery class! I don't need an archery class!" I yelled.

"You could have gone anyway!"

"Why? Grace, why would I do that?"

"Because you should listen to figures of authority!"

"That Grace is why you are so aggravating! You listen too well. Sometimes you have to march to the beat of your own drum!" I yelled.

"Listen boy!" She spat. "That could easily get me killed!"

"How could it get you killed?"

"Shamrock, áit a bhfuil mé ó éisteacht lenár sinsir agus superiors go soiléir nach bhfuil tú é sin a dhéanamh i gcás do as!" She switched to Gaelic.

"English!" I yelled, she must have been pretty mad because she stormed off muttering under her breath.

"Wow, what did she say?" Percy asked.

"I don't know Percy!" I yelled and walked away in the other direction, Percy trotting after me like and obedient little Puppy. "Why are you fallowing me."

"I'm not supposed to be left alone remember?" He said.

"Then why did you fallow _Grace_?" I asked.

"Yeah, send _me _with the huntress who's sworn off guys forever." He grumbled.

"Okay yeah you're right. I'm sorry." I said.

"Oh it's not me you should apologize too; it's Grace you should apologize to." He fallowed me a good distance away from all the people before I answered.

"Yeah I guess you're right. Come on lets go find her." I said.

I should probably take a moment to say that I am normally very docile (That wasn't sarcasm) but I do have a temper that when provoked has a tendency to in avertedly bring myself or others to the brink of destruction(I am a hundred percent serious on that one) actually I am a little surprised that it hasn't gotten me killed yet. Anyway certain red heads who names I won't mention (But whose initials spell GRACE) also happen to have a temper, and when you put these two things together, well the incident back there should be a pretty good example. Actually I have to say that was one of our more docile arguments. Just a few days ago we were at each other's throats (In the more literal sense than one might think) well Chiron got involved and – never mind but having the Apollo cabin go up in flames was _not_ my fault.

We found Grace in the process of destroying a bench underneath a tree. I guess she needed to relieve stress or anger, but what she was doing to that innocent bench was _not_ the least bit docile; if anything it was unhealthy and borderline illegal. Grace was so livid that she didn't see us for several minutes, or perhaps she heard us when Percy said;

"Remind me _never _to make her mad."

"You think this is bad? You should have seen what Thalia did when I drank all the coffee." I muttered. Grace turned, poised for the strike.

"Oh," She said. "It's you."

"Yeah um hi, sorry about earlier." I said.

"Oh, um yeah, I'm sorry too, I should be able to trust you but I can't, I'll try to trust you if you try to control your temper." She said.

"Okay deal." I said.

"See, now kiss and make up." Percy said, and if that wasn't the biggest mistake he ever made I don't know what is. We both turned on him.

"What did you say?" Grace said her voice dripping with venom. Then a bell rang.

"Um, I said oh look there's lunch. BYE!" He turned and ran off towards the cafeteria.

"Saved by the bell." I muttered.

"Let's just go to lunch I think we've scared him enough for a little while." She said. I nodded and we walked towards the cafeteria.

"I think what you were doing to that bench was illegal." I said.

"No, if it was someone would have stopped me a long time ago." She said.

"Grace, I think all the cops would be afraid of getting judo flipped to stop you." I pointed out.

"Really?" She asked.

"Yes"

"Good."

After Lunch Grace took me down to the Kissing Post, she had explained that you didn't actually have to kiss there, that it was just a name for where people reunited with their families. She was looking at a young man kiss his wife when she said;

"Shamrock?"

"Yeah?" I looked at her.

"Do you remember the question you asked me on the boat?" She asked looking at me her piercing Green eyes boring into me, as though staring into my soul.

"I asked a lot of questions." I said.

"You know the one about love?"

"Oh you mean 'If love is so bad why do we going looking for it?'" I asked.

"Yeah that one." She said still looking at me in that odd way.

"Okay, what about it?" I asked, shifting under her gaze.

"I have your answer." She mumbled.

"Okay the do you feel like telling me or do I have to guess it?" I asked.

"Oh no I'll tell you." She muttered.

"You still haven't told me." I said, I was getting a little annoyed now, not only was her gaze enough to scare me (She looked like she was either going to kill me or kiss me both of which are _not _on my to do list) but the way she was talking matched her gaze. I just wanted to know if I should duck in cover or hold my ground.

"The answer is; we go looking for love because it's the closest we'll ever get to magic." She whispered, so low I could barely hear it, and then she did what really shocked me. She kissed me pithily. As soon as she broke the kiss she stood up and began to walk away her head down. I stood and grabbed her arm.

"Whoa, whoa hold on just a little second." I said. "You tell me love is the closest thing to magic, _kiss_ me and now you're just going to walk away?"

"S-shamrock I'm sorry I really have to go." She muttered her eyes were now full of emotion, conflicting emotion. Happiness, Sadness, Loneliness, Trust, Hope, and a spark of what I thought was Love, but that disappeared with in a second.

"Grace please just-"I said, but before I could finish, she pulled her arm out of my grip, disappeared into the throng of people and I was left standing alone.

"Well Lad I don't know what you did to her, but you've messed something up that's for sure." A man behind me said.

"Um thanks?" I said kind of unsure about what to do in this situation.

"She's a rare one she is." He said.

"How so?" I asked.

"Well it's rare to find an Irish rose quite like that, I can tell from looking at her she is from the sea, she loves it dearly, with such a tender love as few else will ever know. If you're lucky she'll love you like that, looks like someone I once knew. Aideen O'Connell, I loved her so much, but she chose the potato farmer over me and as far as I know they have to lovely children, Enye and Sean O'Donally are their names. Enye, it means Grace you know." He said.

"Um, yeah that's nice and all but what does this have to do with my problem?" I asked.

"Because of your smart you'll love her until the end of time." He said.

"Um I hate to say this but I don't even love her!" I yelled, who did this guy think he was Eros? The guy gave a smile and I realized with a start he _was _Eros. "GO figure I time travel and I still get stuck with one."

"What was that?"

"Oh nothing." I said.

"Well I'm telling you that someday you are going to, but by then it will be too late, she'll be gone." He smiled again and was gone.

"Go figure." I muttered and walked back towards the dining hall to look for Percy. I kept telling myself it was just the mingled emotions. That was all that was making this weird, her emotions were mingled from being tossed back in time and being forced to relive her worst nightmares. I found Percy sitting on the steps. I sighed and sat next to him.

"Hey Sham." He said, taking a bite out of a banana. "Banana?"

"No thanks." I muttered.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"Fine." I said absent mindedly.

"She kiss you?" He asked I jumped "I knew it!"

"What makes you think that?" I asked.

"Easy you have the same look I did after Annabeth kissed me, you look like she fried your brain and you don't know what to do about it." He said. I rolled my eyes and grabbed the banana peel and began to rip it in half. "Dude I get the you're having a tough day but don't take it out on an innocent banana."

"Shut up." I growled.

"Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the crib this morning." He muttered. "You are a mess. I don't even have to look at you to know that. I mean one minute your fighting and now well look at you."

"It's me now is it?" I snapped "I don't even know which end of the string to hold. One minute Grace is about to kill me the next she's kissing me!"

"Oh tell me about it. Annabeth and I went through that, it was kind of like dealing with the god Janus, one moment she's ready to kill you the next minute you're kissing under a volcano." He said.

"You don't realize how against my morals this is. I can't comprehend the emotion of romantic love! It is mentally impossible for my brain to register how I feel through all of this! Your brain can handle romantic concept. I did even understand _Romeo and Juliette_ last year, what is the point of their love? It's forbidden, so why feel it?" I was now _really_ irritated.

"Well Star-crossed love is popular, and the fact that she was forbidden made her all the more lovely to Romeo, if their parents had been okay with it odds are they wouldn't have had such passion for each other." He explained, I looked at him and he responded; "Annabeth made me do the camp book club."

"The point is that I can't comprehend or feel romantic love!" I said, Percy frowned.

"That's note entirely true. Your mom can feel romantic love; I mean she did have that thing going on with Orion." He said I rolled my eyes.

"Never mind." I grumbled.

"I get it." He said.

"You do?"

"You're Philophobic." A smile was growing on his face.

"I am not afraid of anyone named Phil." I said.

"No, Annabeth was telling me about the different kinds of fears and she said Philophobia was the fear of falling in love or being loved." He was no grinning from ear to ear like and idiot.

"I am _not_." I insisted.

"You are, the fact that you can't comprehend love is just a state of mind put there by and inherited fear." He said. "You probably also have Erotophobia the fear of romantic love. You got it from your mom who has both of those fears. Though growing up in a family like the godly one I'm shocked she isn't more scarred."

"Is it that bad?" I asked.

"Well Thalia, Nico and I only spent Thanksgiving with them and Thalia was in tears." He said.

"Wow, it's that dysfunctional?" I asked.

"Yep." Percy said.

Dinner was an awkward event between me and Grace, she wouldn't meet my eyes and I wouldn't meet hers. With Percy though things are always a bit more interesting. Anyway, I pulled something out of my mash potatoes, and held it up it was limp and green.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Cabbage and there's also ham." Grace said. Percy spit his out.

"This had cabbage I'm awwergic to caddige." His tongue was already starting to swell.

"Percy!" Grace yelled. "Nurse!" A nurse ran over and examined him. "He's allergic to cabbage."

"Then why did he eat it?" The nurse asked.

"We didn't know it had cabbage!" I said.

"Okay then I'll have to take your brother back to his ward and treat him you two stay here." The nurse ordered and as though afraid of the nurse Grace sat right back down. The nurse led Percy away and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Idiot, the bits of leaf should have been and indicator, that and the ingredient list next to them." Grace said

"Well we all know how perceptive he is." I said.

"I've clearly set my expectations too high with him." She shook her head and went back to her food.

After dinner Grace and I were allowed one hour in the library together, this was mostly a quite event because, well it's a library and things were still weird between us.

"Grace look, Charles Dickens!" I hissed.

"Sham you can get Charles Dickens in a bookstore in our own time." She rolled her eyes.

"Not signed copies!" I showed her the inside cover and sure enough inside was a loopy signature.

"Okay that is pretty cool." She nodded in agreement. I put the book back and fallowed Grace to the poetry section these were mixed old and new books

"Why are we here?" I asked.

"What, no appreciation for poetry Sham?" She asked.

"No, it just always seemed too floatly and romantic for me." I shrugged.

"Well I like poetry." She said and pulled down a book. While she stood there reading I continued to browse. As I came through two of the shelves I ran into someone.

"Oh I'm sorry." I said.

"It's fine." A girl's voice said. She pushed past me and I was left alone.

I said a very awkward goodbye to Grace and was led to my ward. I had come to the conclusion that things would _never _be the same between us again. Which was disappointing, because a fourth of the hunt was terrified of me still, a fourth just flat out didn't like me a fourth I didn't really know or like and then a fourth of the hunt I fought the urge to beg my mom to let them use me for target practice and the rest were Thalia and Grace.

The ward was still just as painfully bright as before and just as clean. I sat on the end of my crib and watched all the other guys. The guy next to me was staring off into space and the rest were fiddling around with their hands. The eerie thing was I could tell who had been here the longest as opposed to who had just gotten here. The guy next to me had been here a long time the guy on the other side of me was from the same ship as I was and the other guys I couldn't see very well but if I had to guess I would say two or three days because they were all brothers and talked to no one but each other.

Grace

Grace was oddly relieved when the nurses came and led her and Sham in separate directions, it saved them an awkward goodbye. She wasn't quite sure why she had kissed him or why she had done it then. It had just felt so right too right. She decided to talk to him as soon as they got back to their time.

For now though there was nothing she could do but sit on her bed with her knees pulled up to her chest and watch everyone else. They were either talking to each other in strange languages or the occasional snippet of English or they were doing pretty much exactly the same thing she was. Holding her knees up to her chest and keeping to herself, Grace was good at that. She didn't mind being alone, or she hadn't before. Now thought there was a certain emptiness that felt odd. She told herself that it was just being back to the old days that made her so empty. She just needed to get back to her lady in her time and then she would be fine. Just fine.

Grace was exhausted it had been a long day for her and not getting any asleep these past few nights was really taking its toll. She hadn't told Sham that even on the boat she had a hard time sleeping, he certainly didn't, she had heard him sleeping perfectly fine.

_My life is horribly ironic._ Grace thought to herself it was. She had found a new family and made a few friends, (Okay so it had taken a few hundred years to do so, why did that matter? She had done it.) then Shamrock had shown up and turned her life upside down. Again. She couldn't really help thinking that it was just his luck and she had gotten drug into this because of it. Of course that would mean she had bad luck to, but if she thought about it she did. Her family had died or left her, she had joined the hunters only to be drug on this rollercoaster of a ride and then there was this, this whole incident seemed horribly ironic, in fact it was ironic enough for it to get its own name on the list of bad things that had happened to her. Even her having bad luck was ironic, she was _Irish _shouldn't she have a little bit better luck? Her mother also had owned so many good luck talismans that Grace had thought she would be luck for a _really_ long time. Of course that was not true. That was _really_ not true.

The only person who had worse luck was Shamrock, and even that she couldn't be sure of. He either had inordinate amounts of bad luck or a knack for almost getting himself and others killed. Just her luck it would be both. Of course with Sham you never knew, it could be insanely bad luck or just a knack for getting destroyed or even a suicide attempt. In Volterra he had said he didn't really care if he died one way or the other.

Then there was the factor of her bad luck and Shams bad luck just making even worse luck! It would be horribly ironic, of course at a certain point Grace just had to expect her life to be horribly ironic.

She decided on getting a little sleep, so the crawled under the blankets and calmly waited for the nurse to turn out the lights, of course once the nurse did she found she couldn't sleep. She lay there with her eyes open, blinking on the darkness. She lay there for a long time, she didn't count, she didn't roll over, she didn't even sigh. She just lay there in complete darkness as though submerged in her worst fear. Her own past. She was terrified of it and she hated it. Ironic, a plethora of irony.

She thought maybe in the morning she would talk to Shamrock about escaping, at this point she was willing to try almost anything. Almost. Even she still had limits.

Of course considering how well things had gone recently, they would set the whole Island on fire during their escape attempt. She hoped that wouldn't happen. The building _was _stone right? She silently cursed herself for not remembering. It was stone when she had arrived her, which wouldn't be for another thirteen years. Grace had just assumed it always had been, she didn't really ask. That just seemed like an odd question that would get you in even more trouble than you were in or worth. Grace didn't like to be in trouble. Ever. Even when she was a little kid she had done what was asked of her, it was her job to set an example for her little brothers and sisters.

She sighed and decided to think it over in the morning when she wasn't too tired and she rolled over on to her side and silently went fell into a deep sleep…

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><p><strong><em><em>Personally that is one of my favorite chapters, and I did a pretty good time consdering I wrote this with a sinus infection, on two hours of sleep and six cups of coffee in the middle of February, yeah this fic's been done a while. **

****~HuntressofArtemis101/ Ginny


	4. Our Day Gets a Little Explosive

**Hello everyone! It's 6 am here right now and ****I know we just had an update but like I said unless I keep them coming I won't get Part III up in time to move.**

**This chapter is dedicated to **_sonofthetrigod_**, my only reviewer.**

**, I know people are reading it come on it takes like five seconds to review! Oh well if it's that bad then tell me. I don't mind I just need a little feedback, now I feel like I'm talking to myself. Never mind. **

**Thanks Iris for putting up with my rambling, Sapphier for being always egar to listen to the next chapter, for Bella and Belle for reminding me every writer needs a break and to Arabella for letting me babble over email**

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><p>Chapter Four<p>

_But If I had to parish Twice I would say the for destruction ice – Robert Frost, Fire and Ice_

Our Day Gets a Bit, Explosive…

Shamrock

After a week on the island, I was ready to die. The food was horrid, I had the sudden urge to write all over the walls just so they wouldn't be so white and Percy was starting to drive me insane. He just wouldn't shut up he talked whenever we were together and to be honest I would rather have Grace recite the poems she found to me over and over again.

Of course I was able to spend less and less time with Grace, because she spent more time helping with the younger kids and to tell you the truth it was aggravating.

By the time the 13th rolled around I was going insane. I finally cornered Grace, she was in the nursery holding little girls hand and a baby, they were on their way back and looked very tired. I tapped her shoulder and she turned.

"Oh hi Sham." She said.

"Have you been avoiding me?" I asked.

"No I've just been helping." She said motioning for me to fallow her.

"Well can we talk?" I asked.

"Yeah, just let me get them down for a nap." She said. I fallowed her to the nursery and she handed me the baby to hold while she put the little girl down. "Here I'll take that."

"Okay." I said, she lay the baby in the crib and he fell asleep instantly.

"Alright let's go"

2011

Back in our time, only about fifteen or twenty minutes had passed since Artemis and her brother had fought and Artemis was curled on her couch absent mindedly petting her dog and watching television, even though she loved the hunting channel she paid it no attention. Her mind was whirring with all the information she had received. Though her child looked nothing like his father there was that touch, in him that made it seem fitting.

Shamrock looked more like her and acted more like her, but there was his father in there he had the same passion to protect what he loved no matter what the cost. He had the same nose, and ears, his eyes were neither his fathers nor his mother's they belonged to both. It all made since but at the same time had to be true.

She was however a little surprised that she hadn't made the connection between him and his sister though, she had met the girl and they were a lot alike. They even looked alike though she had brushed that off. The girl however looked more like the father, Curly hair (Though it was auburn) taller stance (Though a bit short she was taller than Sham, a lot of people were) the nose and while the girl had a love for hunting her personality seemed more like the fathers. Loving and always over thought things before she did them.

The doorbell rang and she absentmindedly stood up and walked to the door, she found her uncle Poseidon standing there, he towered over her. She only stared up at him and blinked.

"Hello, Apollo tells me you are quite distressed." He said.

"Yes, I think you would have a reason to be you if the other parentage of your only child was kept a secret from you." She stated.

"Yeah I guess I would" He rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Can I come in?" Artemis' only response was to step out of the way and point. She wasn't really in the mood to play hostess.

"What can I help you with?" She asked flicking the television off. Poseidon pulled off his fisher man's hat off and shook out his always damp hair, she winced as she caught the smell of sea salt and ocean spray, the very smell that haunted her in her nightmares.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay, I know that it's a shocker and everything." He said. She sat down her silver eyes glistening with unshed tears.

"I will be fine." She mumbled.

Shamrock

Grace and I walked outside to the court yard and sat down on a bench, she looked out over the water.

"If I have been avoiding you it's my business." She said her hair blowing in the breeze.

"But Why? We could talk things out." I tried.

"Sham, you are a great guy, but right now I just want to get out of here. Then we'll talk." She said.

"Okay well what if we met somewhere to night at midnight?" I asked.

"Why?" She asked wearily, instinctively reaching to her hip where she usually kept a dagger and jumping when she realized it wasn't there.

"To try an escape what did you think?" I asked she raised one eyebrow. "Oh, I guess that sounded wrong. No I'm _not_ going to mug you."

"Good. I think I can get out of the dorm." She said.

"Okay I'll tell Percy the… uh… furnace room at midnight." I said. She raised her eyebrows even higher.

"The furnace room?"

"I saw it in a Movie once."

"You're lucky your c- my ladies son or I would have to kill you just for your stupidity."

"What would I do set it on fire?"

"I wouldn't put it past you." Grace said.

"Thanks Grace." I muttered.

"You're welcome Sham. Want to go on a walk?" She stood up.

"Yeah sure." I sighed and fallowed her. We decided to try and find the furnace room. Okay here is a tip, it's not a good idea to try and find something without asking for help from someone who knows there way around better. We must have gotten lost a million times.

When we finally did find the furnace, it was in the main building, hot and really stuffy. A boy about fourteen saw us and came over.

"You cannot be here." He said his voice was raspy; he was covered in coal dust and looked tired.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"I am fourteen. Now leave." He said.

"What are you shoveling?" I asked.

"Coal. Leave." He said.

"Is it even legal to make kids do that?" I asked.

"Yes, now get out!" He shoved us out muttering something about dirty immigrants and nosey people.

"He was nice." I muttered.

"Sham cut him a break, he's probably got several hungry brothers and sisters to feed, and needs this job." Grace said.

"But he's much too young." I protested.

"Sham, not here, not now. He could lose his job if we had stayed there." She said.

"Why then? Why does he have to work?" I asked.

"Shamrock you are never going to understand, you've never had a bunch of kids rely on you to ensure that their stomachs are full. You've never had to come home not knowing what you are going to eat tomorrow or if you'll even get to eat tomorrow." She whispered. I decided to drop the subject as it was clearly something she didn't really want to talk about. We made our way back out to the court yard and sat down.

"So how's the nursery?" I asked and Grace seemed to brighten.

"Oh Sham they're so cute. I could spend all day there with them, and they need someone to help because if no one did they would be way too over crowded. Just yesterday I helped deliver one!" She gushed, I tried to smile but to be honest the image of Grace delivering a baby was not a great one.

"Oh that's… great?" I said.

"Oh Shamrock it was so worth it, the look on that woman's face when I handed her firstborn baby to her." She was now lost in a 'Miracle' as she called it. "Do you want to see them?"

"Um sure." I said and she grabbed my hand and led me back to the nursery. Only this time there were about a dozen small infants wrapped up in blankets.

"We have to stay out here but there she is." Grace pointed to a small baby in a little pink blanket. "Sofia."

"Hey you don't think that she's the same Sofia as we know?" I asked.

"Could be, she did mention today being her birthday." Grace said.

"That would be cool." I said.

"Well except for the fact that I just help my best friend's mom give birth to her…" Grace said.

"Awkward." I muttered.

"Gods you think?" She asked.

"I know. That would just be weird." I said. We stood there for a few more minutes before the lunch bell rang. We walked in silence to lunch and when we sat down across from Percy he froze.

"Okay as nice as it is to see you to together again and not just staring across the room at each other there is so much tension between you two, I am starting to think the staring would be better." He said.

"Percy if I were you I would shut up." Grace growled, he looked at me.

"What's her problem?" He asked.

"Percy, I agree with Grace. Shut up." I said.

"Okay, there is definitely something going on between you two." He said.

"Percy." I said.

"It's kind of like before Annabeth and I started dating, we really liked each other but we didn't want to admit it. Of course as Sham had pointed out to me numerous times you two are hunters so if that's not it, then what is?" He asked.

"Nothing. Nothing is going on between us Percy." Grace snapped.

"Okay then." He said.

"Percy can you get out of your dorm room?" I asked.

"Sure if I wanted to." Percy stabbed a piece of broccoli on the end of his fork.

"Well I need you to sneak out at midnight." I said.

"Why?" He asked.

"Because, Grace, you and I are going to escape tonight." I said.

"Are you sure about that Sham?"

"Yeah why?" I asked.

"Because I feel like something important is going to happen tonight." He said.

"Well if it's a distraction then good we need all the distractions we can get if we're going to pull this one off." I said.

"No it's something bad. Something really, really bad." He frowned.

"Well I'm sure it's nothing just meet us in the furnace room at midnight." I said.

After lunch we showed Percy the furnace room and were once again shoved out by the boy, this time he called us 'dirty immigrants sticking their noses into other people's business.' Right to our faces and threw coal at us until we were a good distance away.

"Well he's in a bad mood." Percy said.

"You think?" I asked my voice practically soaked in sarcasm.

"Yeah I think he woke up on the wrong side of the bed." Percy nodded I rolled my eyes and Grace only sighed.

"Why do I try?" She asked rubbing her temples. Percy ran off muttering about swimming and I put my arm around Grace's shoulders.

"I have wondered that every day we've been stuck on this island." I said. She moved my arm and looked at me.

"I'm not a hugger." She said.

Grace

It's not that she didn't like his arm around her, in fact Grace kind of liked his arm there, but it was how much she was okay with it being there that made her tell him to take it off. Maybe she was over reacting, but she didn't like the feeling he gave her at all. In fact she found it quiet distressing. She supposed most other people would be okay with this but she was not most other people.

She sighed as she fallowed Shamrock outside, his auburn hair was a mess and he had his usually scowl carved into his face. His metallic green eyes had a flurry of emotion going through them, as though he was thinking many things over at once.

His eyes, they were much too old for only fifteen, he should be happy and enjoying his life, not worrying over things like time travel. Sure, she was only technically fourteen, but she had been alive for over a hundred years. She had an excuse. Perhaps it was just a Shamrock thing.

She remembered him telling her once that he had never really had much of a childhood that didn't include staying home with Apollo, or the occasional visits to the store, all of which ended in disaster. She wanted to give him something to remember. Something that he would look back on as happy, she just wasn't sure how to do it.

Shamrock sat down on a bench, ran a hand through his hair and yawned. She couldn't help but smile, he yawned like a puppy. His nose got all scrunched up and his tongue arched.

"Tired?" She asked sitting next to him.

"A little." He said.

"Well then go on take a nap." She encouraged.

"Where?"

"Here I don't mind." She shrugged getting off the bench and sitting in the grass. He frowned and looked at her.

"Why'd you move?" He asked.

"Well you need somewhere to stretch out." She replied, he promptly moved down next to her and stretched out on the grass next to her.

"Better?" He said.

"I guess." She muttered. Soon Sham was asleep, and she was left to her thoughts. It always bothered her to be left with her thoughts. It was kind of like being forced to relive something over and over again something that seemed to happen to her all too much.

Over the last few weeks she had developed a kind of insomnia, she would lie awake in her bunk, listen to the sounds of the others sleeping and think. Then was when she knew she was completely and utterly alone. It was torcher.

She also picked up a lot of information this way, she knew that Shamrock often had trouble sleeping on new moons most of the time when the moon was less than three quarters of the way full and that he slept best when the moon was full. She knew that Thalia talked in her sleep about Luke and Annabeth. She knew that Emily would have nightmares a lot, that Sofia slept like a rock, and Ila slept so lightly that she was often woken.

She did however, also know that whenever she dreamt it was usually a bad thing. It was a bad thing because it meant that she would have nightmares. In the last hundred years she had nothing but nightmares and recently Shamrock had started to wake her up whenever she did have them. However when she eventually got to sleep most of the time she slept so soundly that she wouldn't dream and she only ever slept for a few hours.

This had its benefits though she was always the first one up and the first one showered and ready for the day. Of course, more recently her day's had consisted of getting into life or death trouble. Most of which was not her fault. If Shamrock had just left the Ares cabin alone they wouldn't have been in the infirmary for three days. She knew that the bloody bores head was a bit ostentatious; the campers knew it was a bit ostentatious they all knew, but he just _had _to go, rub it in Clarisse's face.

She looked over at Shamrock, even in his sleep he scowled, a scowl was status quo for him though. She didn't know why it just was. She sighed.

"I wish I knew why you scowled so much." She muttered to herself. It frustrated her, it really did because it just wasn't normal for anyone. She was fairly sure she hadn't ever seen Shamrock smile. Of course he hadn't really had much of a reason to smile in his life and he had gotten better, traveling with them.

It still seemed to bother him that the hunters still hung their clothes on a clothes line. As he had put it, he didn't really want to see their under clothes hung up like that, but he had gotten better. He did seem to have a lot of pet peeves. He hated a messy tent, he hated the way the other tents smelled, (Something about girl smell) he hated people in his tent, he hated people doing his laundry, (He was convinced they would mess it up) he hated people touching his stuff, he hated people messing up his bed, (On the off chance they were in his tent) he hated it when people would lecture him about anything and he hated to come into Grace, Emily, and Sofia's tent because it was "messy" (There was a sock on the floor _once_) Oh who was she kidding? He didn't have pet peeves, he had kennels of annoyances.

She was fairly sure he was OCD along with having ADHD and the uncanny ability to get himself and others into mortal danger. He was also terrified of fast moving water. It was weird. Who has that many pet peeves, OCD, ADHD, the irrational fear of water _and_ the uncanny ability to get himself and others into mortal danger?

He may have been a mess, but he was the hunts mess. So slowly bit by bit they were sorting him out, they had a list of his pet peeves going (290 in all) and were working it down bit by bit (They were down to 287) at this rate it was a good thing they were immortal because they would have to spend _centuries _sorting him out.

He was also pretty lucky that he got along with Thalia because she was someone you did _not_ want on your bad side. She could get pretty darn mean when it was her time of the month, as Shamrock had found out just a few days ago he had been drinking a cup of coffee the last cup and Thalia got mad. Long story short he was lucky he could run fast and Thalia had no real reason to severely injure him.

She sighed, and deciding she had better get some sleep too, and lay down next to him, closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Shamrock

I woke up and the first thing I saw was Grace curled on the ground next to me. She was sleeping more soundly then I had ever seen her. Whenever I saw her she was usually awake or sleeping so lightly I was afraid to move.

I sat up and looked at her. She seemed much more peaceful than normal, most of the time she seemed stressed and over tired. I couldn't help myself, but I reached out and brushed a stray strand of her bright red hair out of her face.

Percy strolled up and sat next to me, he looked dry enough but he smelled like he had swum in the Hudson. I wrinkled my nose.

"Where have you been?" I asked he promptly shook his hair off instinctively though nothing came off of him but the smell.

"I told you I was swimming." Percy looked over at Grace. "She's tired."

"Oh you noticed!" I said my voice full of sarcasm. "Yeah she has some of the worst sleep insomnia I have seen."

"Really, wow, I remember one time a few years back, just before Thalia joined the hunt, she came to my door at like seven in the morning on a Monday and she said she hadn't been able to sleep so at five in the morning she hitch-hiked her way over to our house." He started to babble and I blocked him out.

After living with Apollo for so long, I had developed the handy ability to block people out. It came in really convenient in situations like this, when people just kept talking and talking and I didn't really care but I was kind of forced to 'pay attention' I could just block them out.

I let my mind wander to how we were going to get out of here, so far the closest I had gotten to an escape plan was where to execute it. Maybe we could jump into the river and have Percy pull us. Maybe we would be stuck here; no I couldn't think like that, I got us into this mess, I would get us out of it. How we were actually going to do it, well like I said, I'm improvising.

"Percy." I said, unable to take it any longer.

"What?" He asked, I figured telling him to shut up would be rude to I pointed.

"A unicorn!" He stood up. "Oh it ran away."

"I'll catch it!" He said and ran off. I heard Grace yawn and sit up next to me.

"He's really loud." She muttered.

"I can't believe he fell for the unicorn trick." I said.

"I can, he has more energy than usual because we're stuck on this island." She said.

"Enye." I muttered to myself. Grace looked at me and narrowed her eyes.

"How do you know that?" She asked.

"Oh it means Grace." I said.

" I know what my name means." She snapped. "I asked how you knew it."

"That's your name?" I asked.

"Yes Sham, it was, when I came to this island the first time the man who spoke to me about my name and everything couldn't say my name and since everyone else called me Grace I told him that was my name. It has been ever since." She said.

"Oh, I'm sorry." I said.

"It's okay you didn't know." She muttered.

"Can I call you Enye?" I asked.

"No."

"Why."

"Because if you do I will have to kill you."

"Okay then." I said but I just couldn't resist asking; "Why?"

"Sham only one person ever got away with calling me that and that was my mother, and I can never hear that name without looking around for her, I just can't." She said wiping away a tear that had escaped.

"I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have asked." I said.

"It's fine, really. Sham to be honest, you have helped me move past what I used to be, and maybe someday, I don't know when or where but someday you will call me Enye." She said. I didn't really know how to take this.

I wasn't great with girls, I never have been but maybe she was starting to trust me a little bit more then she used to. There is a huge difference between trust between two guys, and a trust between two girls. Guys we can trust each other, but girls, one minute there someone's best friends the next they hate the person. Between guys and girls, that's _even _more difficult. Kind of like that movie Apollo liked, Twilight, one minute she's making out with a vampire, the next it a werewolf. Come on people, make up your minds!

"You don't make out with werewolves do you?" I asked.

"Where on _earth _did you get _that_ idea?" Grace yelped.

"Well do you?"

"No!"

"Good, they're fast and I don't think I could kill more than one at a time."

"Oh Shamrock I worry sometimes." She shook her head.

"Why? I'm a good kid." I said.

"Sham you either missed the last few weeks or are completely oblivious to how often we've nearly gotten killed." She said.

"Well I know how often we've nearly gotten killed but to be honest I'm more worried about screwing up the time stream." I frowned.

"Sham if we're lucky we'll only make a bit of difference and so far we have _not_ been lucky." Grace sighed.

"Yeah you're right but things can change! We got lucky in Volterra, and we can get lucky now." I said.

"You might be right about that but that won't stop me from wondering when we're going to run out of luck." She said.

"Maybe we will soon, maybe not." I shrugged. "Just roll with it." She looked at her feet.

"Shamrock did you ever think that rolling with it isn't enough?"

"Yeah, I rebel a lot but in cases like this I think the only thing we can do is roll with it." I shrugged.

Percy =came back and sat next to me. He glared and said.

"There was no Unicorn." He pouted.

"Percy it's okay we'll get off this island." I muttered.

"Good, then I'll find that Unicorn!"

"Sure man, you'll find that unicorn. Now what have you been drinking?" I asked.

"Well this nice lady gave me coffee." He grinned like an idiot. "Guess what? My mommy says I'm special!"

"That's nice Percy." Grace said, rolling her eyes.

Soon though the coffee wore off and he became more, normal, or as normal as Percy got. Unlike Grace he very clearly remembered what he had been up too. Like Grace he didn't seem the least bit ashamed of it. He pulled something out of his pocket, a photograph.

"Who's that?" I asked, looking at the baby in the photo.

"My new half-sister, I was supposed to meet her on Christmas, he name is Natalie, my mom says she has the same smile I did. She's about fifty hours old I think. Paul sent this right after she was born and called when mom and Nat came home." He said.

"She's adorable." I said.

"Thanks, you don't really seem like the kind of guy to like kids though." He said.

"Well my mom is the goddess of childbirth." I said.

"Oh yeah. I didn't really see that coming though, you look like her a lot all except –"

"The eyes, I know Apollo couldn't figure that out either he never told me who my father was." I said.

"Really? Doesn't that upset you?" He asked.

"No, it never really has, I always thought of myself as parentless and I was fine with that, now I just think of myself as fatherless, and I'm okay with that. If he's dead, well he's dead no reason to wish to see him, if he's not he must have been pretty bad for Apollo to raise me." I shrugged.

"I always thought my dad was dead and that bothered me. Then when I found out who he was I hated him for not being there, then I got over it, he's your dad you have to love him." Percy said.

"No I don't if I ever did meet him I don't think I could ever call him dad." I said.

"He'd still be your father though." He pointed out.

"Yeah but I couldn't love him." I said.

"Why not?" Percy asked.

"Well to love someone like that they have to be around more than once." I said.

"Not nessicaraly." Grace piped up.

"What do you mean."

"I had a cousin Roan, she was raised by her our Aunt, because her mother was crazy but the one time she did meet her she did love her like daughter should because her mother was her mother no matter what." She said.

"That's a mother daughter thing, this is not." I sighed, I don't know what made her do this, but Grace hugged me. "What are you doing?" I scowled

"You just looked sad, I used to hug my siblings when they were sad." She said letting go. "It's a growing up in a tight knit family thing."

"Oh."

"Forgive me for sounding like the Aphrodite girls but, you two would be so cute together, and a bigger gossip topic at camp then me and Annabeth." Percy said. I felt my face get hot.

"Well I'll see you two at midnight." Grace said standing up and running in the direction of the nursery.

"You like her." Percy accused.

"No I don't." I said.

"Yeah you do, if there's one thing I got from watching chick-flicks with Annabeth it's how to tell when two people like each other, and she's got a major crush on you." He said.

"No she doesn't"

"Yeah she does but she's in denial and so are you, well actually Grace is afraid of it, you don't yet know what to do with it." He said.

"What would I do with it?" I asked.

"Well Sham you're life is trouble and if you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough then you'll regret it." He said.

"Where did you get that from?" I asked.

"Annabeth read it to me can't remember when." He said.

"I'll talk to her as soon as we get back to camp but until then I'm just going to let it be. " I said.

Confession time; I didn't really want to discuss the kiss with Grace, that was the last thing I wanted to do. I _really _didn't want to talk about it with Percy, or anyone else. I've never been good a confronting my emotions, this was just a whole new level of uncomfortable.

"What does your heart say?" Percy asked.

"Okay rule 1) _never_ say that again it's makes you sound… weird. 2 ) don't ask me about my feelings, ever again." I replied. I stood up and walked away, Percy quickly trotted to just behind me. Kind of like a dog who's been told to heel. We walked back to the dining hall and sat down for dinner.

I looked around for Grace but I didn't see her anywhere. It disappointed me a little bit, but I decided not to think anything of it, she just needed a bit of time to herself. Tension between us had only grown recently and it was making things really hard. She was my best friend and we got on really well most of the time, the other times, well I called it the red-head-terror. She called me, stubborn as Hades.

There was this one time a few… days? Weeks? Months? Anyway a time ago that Emily, Grace and Me were talking about what we used to do and apparently Emily was a flapper and she actually got me to dance with her. Then she got _Grace_ to dance we were both really bad but it was fun.

"Hey Sham look!" Percy laughed snappy me out of my thoughts and then threw his mash potatoes up in the air and tried to catch them but instead they landed in his hair.

"Why would I watch that?" I scowled and went back to my food. I don't know why I was in such a bad mood. I was though and right now I didn't want Percy here. "I'm leaving." I stood up and walked away.

I walked back to my ward and sat down on the end of my 'bed' (It was still a crib) scowling. I was sick of this island, I was sick of Percy, I was sick of my emotions! I didn't want to be here but I was wasn't I and there was nothing I could do about that.

Slowly the ward filled and the lights went out. I lay there for hours until midnight came, when it did I climbed silently out of 'bed' and made my way to the door, it was unlocked and I was able to slip out with ease.

Next I made my way to the mental ward and got Percy out. He wasn't as quite as me but oh well as long as we weren't caught. Then we had to get past the night guard.

This was very unplanned for, the main hall had two night gaurs who were standing around and drinking coffee.

"Law enforcement hasn't changed much then" I muttered. "Come with me, and stick to the shadows." Percy nodded and we slunk over to the wall and crept along it. We stuck to the dark as much as possible. We were coming around to the door when I saw Grace, she was a few feet behind us. She gave me the thumbs up, a tacit that she had hadn't been seen. I smiled, and based off the way Grace looked at me it was demonic.

_No evil looks! _

**_Mom? When did you come back?_**

_I'm your consciousness dummy!_

**_Oh. No need to be mean. So does this make you a cricket?_**

_Focus!_

**_Right sorry!_**

We slipped into the boiler room and the door shut behind us. It wasn't completely silent but it made so little noise that they paid us no attention.

"So how'd you sleep?" Grace asked.

"Okay, now how do we get off this Island?" I asked.

"I thought you had a plan." She accused.

"Improvising! I'm Improvising!" I argued.

"That's not a plan." She put her hands on her hips and looked shockingly like my mother when angry.

"Yes it is." I objected.

"No it's not!" She insisted.

"Oh really Improvising has gotten us through a lot of things!" I flung my arms out and knocked something into the boiler. I was sure I felt it get hotter.

"Yeah, it got you bitten in Volterra and, It got us into a major fight with a vampire!" She said her voice raising a bit. The room was definitely getting hotter.

"Um guys." Percy mumbled. Was that smoke I smelled? Well it was a boiler room

"What!" We yelled, I was sure the cops would come now but I didn't really care let them! If we were deported so what? At least we'd be off of this stupid island. It was really hot now.

"Um, turn around." Percy said. I definitely smelled something.

"Why?" I challenged, not caring that I felt like my skin was going to peel off since it was so hot.

"Um Sham!" Grace said and I wheeled around and was face to face with a wall of fire. "What did you do?"

"How do you know this was me?" I challenged.

"You knocked that into the boiler!" She pointed to a tank of gasoline. The door burst open and the policemen froze.

"Sound the alarm, I'll get the kids!" The younger guy said.

"Oh." I said. I turned to face the cop. "Hi, um it's not what it looks like?" I was starting to choke now though.

"Get out!" He yelled motioning for us to fallow him out of the room, but before we could the flames engulfed the door.

"Now we're going to die." I said.

"You're negative today." Percy chocked.

"No I'm a realist!" I said. "I tell the truth and the truth is we are going to die!" I felt Grace grab my hand, I squeezed hers and we all huddled together, coughing and chocking as the wall of flames came closer to us. Grace put her head on my shoulder and Percy stood frozen next to me.

I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move, I couldn't save us. We were going to die and it was my fault, I opened my mouth to apologize but instead of saying something;

The light went out.

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><p><strong>Okay we are so close to the end I can smell it, see it and taste it. Really two more chapters TWO. Again it takes five seconds to push the little blue button, write a quick review and click send, okay maybe thirty seconds but if you took the time to read the whole chapter then I think you have enough time to write a short review! Wow time to cut back on the coffee, sorry if I offended anyone.<strong>

HuntressofArtemis101


	5. Subway Stares

**Okay everyone we are almost there, nearly done with this one. We have only one more chapter after this so please read on. **

**Thanks to Sapphier for supporting**

**To Bella for reminding me to take a break**

**To Iris for letting me ramble **

**To Arabella for patiently letting me write down these ideas.**

**I don't own PJO **

* * *

><p>Five<p>

Subway Stares

_Is also great and would suffice – Fire and Ice, Robert Frost_

Sham

The first thing I noticed when I came to was that I was alive, the next thing I noticed was that my two companions were alive. The last thing I noticed was that we were in central park and it was snowing.

I sat up and looked at Grace and Percy, they were still in their clothes from the island, Grace in her dress and Percy in his hospital gown (Which at that time was basically a nightgown) and me in the pants and shirt we had stolen. They were covered in soot, well so was I, and Grace had a burn on her shoulder.

Grace sat up and ripped the hem of her dress, before I could ask what she was doing she wrapped it around my leg, where I hadn't realized there was a burn. She used the excess fabric to dress her own wound before she stood up.

A guy on a bike passed us and raised his eyebrows. We were home! Grace looked at me and smiled, Percy grinned and I nodded.

"We really should get home." I said.

"Yeah let's go home." She smiled.

"Well do we got to camp, or Olympus?" Percy asked. I paused, he made a point; we ought to go to Olympus, but the hunters were at camp…

"Camp. The hunters are there and my mom might be." I said. He nodded and we walked off towards the subway station.

Olympus; Modern Day

Apollo burst in to Artemis's house and ran through the columns (Which looked like trees) to her bed room. She clearly hadn't been expecting him as she drew her bow on him immediately.

"Apollo?" She wondered.

"Yeah sis, he's back!" He panted.

"Shamrock?"

"Yeah, Grace, and Percy too." Apollo said. "They're on their way to camp." Before Apollo could say anything else there was a blinding flash of silver light as his sister teleported to camp. "Damn, I hate it when she does that." The white dog on the bed looked at him and cocked his head as if to say 'yeah so do I' "How do you live with her?" He asked the dog. The dog whined as though it was saying 'she feeds me and walks me and lets me sleep on the bed I can deal with that occasionally.'

New York Subway

We were getting stared at. Well it was no surprise, one doesn't normally see kids who have been through a fire, dressed like their from another era, and digging for loose change in a subway. Percy assured me that this was New York and we weren't the weirdest thing they had ever seen. I wasn't so sure though.

Once we got the tickets it was a matter of getting on the subway, getting to the Long Island train was the next step. Percy knew these subways better than anyone but that could mean A) We'd get where we needed or B) We would get hopelessly lost. I will give you one guess on what happened to us.

We ended up missing the first train and then when we got to the right platform we had to wait half an hour on a little bench with a homeless guy who looked at us and smiled. He was either being nice or he was happy that someone looked worse off than he was. It was also really cold so we ended up huddled together trying to keep each other warm.

"I-It's freezing." Grace commented.

"W-well we could go to my mom's house and Paul could drive us to camp." Percy offered.

"No we can't she just had a baby, sixty hours ago." I said.

"Why should that change anything?" He implored.

"We don't want to be a bother." I insisted.

"Shamrock, my mom's not an Olympian she would love to have us." He pleaded.

"I'm not going to do that, look there's the train." I muttered.

We got stared at, even more on the train then in the satation. Even though there were only five or six people, they wouldn't look at anything but us. One little girl tapped her mother's shoulder.

"What's wrong with them?" She whispered.

"Don't you know it's rude to stare!" I snapped Grace reached over and smacked my arm. "Ow!"

"Shamrock! Say you're sorry." She scolded.

"Fine; I'm sorry," I grumbled. "but don't stare!"

"Sham!" Grace warned.

"Fine, there was a fire at the Society for Creative Anachronism. We escaped." I said.

"Shouldn't you be at the hospital?" The girl asked.

"Shouldn't you be in bed waiting for Santa?" I shot back.

"No. We're going to visit family for the rest of Hanukkah." She said.

"Good for you." I said and sat back. Grace sighed.

"I'm sorry he didn't get his nap." She told the girl and yawned.

"Sleep, it'll be at least an hour." I told Grace.

"Okay." She muttered. Before I could protest she put her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes. I looked over at Percy who smiled.

"I just can't wait to see Annabeth, she's probably worried." He said, I put a finger to my lips.

"Well yeah," I whispered. "Of course she is, you disappeared in a swirling vortex."

"It's not the first time that's happened though. I was gone for two whole weeks before. She was mad at me." He frowned.

"Why?" I asked.

"I was with another girl on an island." He said.

"Oh. Why would that make her mad?" I asked.

"Because she liked me and I was with another girl." He explained.

"Yeah why would that anger her? Of course she likes you your friends aren't you?" I inquired.

"You really don't get it?" Percy wondered.

"No. I don't" I confessed.

"Oh boy, Grace is going to have a difficult time trying to teach you how to act around girls." He muttered.

"Don't I just act like myself?" I asked.

"Shamrock, yourself is a socially awkward, fifteen year old boy who doesn't understand the gender differences." He explained.

"I do understand them! They have different parts and like different things, and they don't like it when you open the bathroom door while they're in the shower." I said.

"Didn't Apollo teach you not to do that?" He asked.

"No he always showered with the door open, and half the time he wasn't alone." I asserted.

"That's gross. Yeah girls don't like it when you open the door while they're showering." He said.

"I know! I got electrocuted! Thalia is mean." I said.

"Well uh yeah, she's Thalia!" His eye twitched as though he was remembering something bad. "Don't make her angry, her spear is sharp and electrocuted."

"Yeah I know that! Now." I muttered.

Percy then decided to busy himself by poking one of his burns repeatedly, say 'Ow!' and then poking it again. I rolled my eyes. Then I noticed another lady sitting across from us, she was the kind of suit an executive would, had glasses and was writing something down on a clipboard. There was really nothing weird about this woman except for the fact that she had a large owl on her shoulder.

"You have and Owl on your shoulder." I said to her, she looked up, her piercing gray eyes studied me.

"I know, his name is Bobo I assure you he is quite friendly, Shamrock Orion Clover." She nodded.

"How do you know my name?" I asked.

"I know everything. Hello Perseus, I hope you are taking good care of my daughter." She said, Percy looked up and bowed respectively.

"Hi Lady Athena, I am taking good care of Annabeth." He shifted uncomfortably, I could see why. With eyes like that it was a wonder she hadn't cleared the whole car by now.

"Athena?" I asked, she turned her cold grey eyes on me and raised and eyebrow.

"Is there a problem?" She asked.

"No, but why are you here?" I wondered.

"Oh Shamrock, it is so rare that I have something entirely new to study, I of course watched you on your last adventure, but this is a whole new circumstance in itself." She said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well you itself are an anomaly, Artemis, as fond of her as I am should never have had a child, and she will do rash things to protect you. This however is a whole new playing field." She said.

"How?" I was puzzled very puzzled.

"Well you see, look at the girl, Grace. While Artemis should never have had you with no man involved anyway, you ought to be completely immune to love, this is a whole new matter. You have forged a bond with her, you will be connected forever, like it or not. This conundrum is one that may never be solved." She smiled at me.

"Conundrum?" Percy asked, Athena sighed and rolled her eyes.

"A puzzle!"

"Oh."

"So wait hold up you are saying that my emotions will get in the way of things?" I asked.

"Oh, you are exactly like your mother. Yes to put it simpily your emotions have started a deadly chess game with fate." She said.

"You're a bit ostentatious with you're knowledge." I said.

"Yes but I am a goddess I can be if I want." She said matter-of-factly.

"What did you mean when you said I was exactly like my mother?" I questioned.

"Well you are terrified of your emotions, now don't get me wrong I am quite fond of your mother, I practically raised her. As much a she will deny it now she used to be terrified of her emotions, it was quite funny actually. Sad too though, then Orion came along and in a way I lost your mother, the sweet innocent little girl I had raised; well she grew up. Then when he… um, died" She choose her words carefully. "She became much colder than ever. It was heart breaking, but for the better, because she learned to be much more independent. She no longer needed me or Apollo, and you are, much the same way. You are afraid of being hurt so you locked your emotions up and refuse to let them get in the way, but Grace holds the key to the box."

"No she doesn't!" I insisted.

"Yes she does, it's ironic really; how the ones who make us strongest are our biggest weakness." Athena looked sadly at me. "As far back as history goes it has been true; Your mother and Orion, Even recently, Percy and Annabeth, Thalia and Luke and you and Grace."

"Um half of those stories end with the guy being brutally murdered." I said.

"Well maybe if we're lucky Percy will be bludgeoned to death," Percy rubbed his head when Athena said this "or he might live happily ever after, we won't know for a while. As for you and Grace I don't know."

"I thought you knew everything?" I asked.

"I do." She insisted "I know everything in the world of logic, but love is not logical and it never will be, but maybe you two will defy the odds."

"Do you think we have that chance?" I asked.

"Logically speaking?" I nodded "No."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." I sighed, sarcasm it goes in one ear and out the other with the Olympians. "Now I must be going, and I will leave you with a warning; watch what you say, it could get you into trouble." Then she was gone in a swirl of grey light.

"Immortals, every other word they say is a riddle, or too big for normal people to understand." I grumbled.

"Well after three thousand years I bet you'd have a pretty big vocabulary too." Percy said. I shrugged.

"Still they could simplify things when they talk to us, I have a pretty monstrous vocabulary but I don't get the whole riddle speaking thing." I groaned.

"Well you can't complain at least Athena likes you." Percy said.

"Why doesn't she like you?" I asked.

"Old feud with my dad, and she's not a huge fan of her daughters choice in guys. To be honest with you I think she would rather have her daughter date Luke, a traitor, then me, a good honest guy." He ran his hand through his hair.

"Wow, she does hate you." I said.

"Thanks." He muttered.

I shifted and Grace sat up very suddenly. "Did I wake you?"

"No, no it wasn't you." She seemed a bit…disturbed. "Just a dream, that's all. You, uh, aren't going to fall off a cliff anytime soon are you?"

"Not planning on it. Why?" I was curious as to why she would ask such an odd question.

"No reason, kind of like you asking me if I make out with werewolves." She said.

"Werewolves?" Percy asked.

"Don't ask." I said.

"I'm not going to." Percy leaned over to Grace. "I'm starting to see why you worry about him so much."

"It's a long story, now let's just drop it, this is our stop." She stood up and the train pulled to a halt.

We were at least three miles away from camp and we were all exhausted, even Grace who had slept looked like she was about to fall over.

"What is it with us getting into so much trouble that we don't have time to sleep?" Percy asked.

"Percy, it's just Shamrock, we just get dragged into it." Grace yawned.

"Not true!" I insisted.

"Maybe not entirely but I have never been in a worse situation then we were in in Volterra." Grace said. "Not even the titan war scared me that much."

"Really? I think the worst situation I've been in is holding the sky." Percy said.

"Holding the sky?" I asked.

"Don't ask, I'll explain some other time, now can't you do some nature magic to get us back to camp faster?" He asked.

"I might be able too, but I'm so tired I might just collapse." I said. I closed my eyes and tried to make the forest bend to my will. It didn't work. "Sorry."

"I have an idea then." Percy said he pulled out a drachma and lead us through the woods until we came to a stream. He threw the coin into the mist created by the rocks and water. "Oh, Iris goddess of the rainbow show me Nico Di Angelo at Camp Half-Blood."

Instead of Nico a woman appeared, she wore a t-shirt with a rainbow that said 'Go green and save the world' on the front, had thick blonde hair and wore glasses.

"Hi, um I'm Iris. I can't locate Nico Di Angelo at Camp Half-Blood at the moment where else would he be?" She asked in a high pitched voice.

"Um the underworld?" Percy guessed.

"Oh, nope I don't do calls to Hades palace." She said.

"Do you do the Elysium?" I asked.

"Yes." She nodded eagerly.

"But that doesn't make any sense." I said.

"Yes it does, I don't like Hades, therefor I don't accept calls to his palace, I can however connect you to the Elysium." She said and before we could protest the image faded and she showed us the image of some blonde guy.

"Luke?" Percy asked, the guy jumped and turned.

"Percy? When did you die?" He asked.

"When did the Iris start sending messages to the dead?" Percy asked.

"Oh. That's new. So what do you need? Wait hang on, you're Shamrock right?" He asked me.

"Um yeah." I said.

"Son of Artemis. Interesting. Now is there a reason you called me, no one ever does." This Luke guy seemed a little sad about this.

"Um Iris connected us, we didn't want to call you." I said.

"Oh yeah I suppose she would do that, she's a little bit of an airhead, if she can't locate the person you want to talk to she'll either spend an hour asking stupid questions or connect you to whoever she wants. Also it's nice to know you guys like me." He smiled.

"Well you did try to raise Kronos." Grace chimed in.

"Yeah, well here I am thinking we were all cool in the end." He said.

"Maybe with us but not with Thalia." Grace scolded. He winced at her name.

"Yeah I guess not. You're a hunter aren't you? I don't believe we've met before." He said.

"I'm Grace." She said her voice dripping with venom.

"Oh, hi then. So what do you need?" He asked.

"Well we wanted to talk to Nico." Percy said.

"Hades kid?" He asked.

"Yeah." Percy said.

" Oh he was here a few minutes ago then he said something about getting dinner and left me alone. Again." Luke said.

"Do you know when he'll be back?" I asked.

"No. He went to camp." Luke explained.

"Then why couldn't Iris locate him?" Percy asked.

"Well people can refuse calls and Iris doesn't see through Stragyn Iron well, if I was you I would call Thalia and make her drag Nico over to you." He said.

"How do you know she's at camp?" I asked.

"Well you and Grace are both hunters, and Percy a guy so you obviously aren't in camp so I just assumed she's at camp." He said.

"Well would Thalia do that?" Percy asked.

"If I know her as well as I think I do yes, she would." Luke sighed.

"We'll do that then." I said.

"Okay and before you go tell her I said hi." Luke said and the mist disappeared.

"Let's call Thalia then. Does anyone have another drachma?" He asked.

"No." I said. "Wait, why do we need Nico anyway?"

"He can shadow travel us to camp but it looks like we're on our own here." He said.

"Luke didn't seem like a bad guy." I said.

"He was pretty twisted, well sick really, Annabeth said he started to change after Thalia had died, but it got worse after he had a quest that didn't go well. He probably would have gone back if he had been able to but by then he was being used, and he knew it. We all did. Thalia took it the hardest though, I don't think I've ever seen anything worse than her expression when we told her about Luke, I've never heard a scarier, but still sad, sound then the one of a mixture of rage and pain that she made when we told her. It was the second worst moment of my life." He said.

"What was the worst?" I asked as we walked through the forest.

"Oh seeing Annabeth take a knife for me, hands down." He said.

"Ouch." I said. We walked the rest of the way in silence. It was cold and snowing but at least there was no wind, we must have walked for an hour maybe more. When we finally reached camp it was four in the morning.

Grace and I stumbled into camp- Okay now I'm repeating myself and I don't like repeats frankly repeats make me angry. They're one of my pet peeves, and despite what Grace and the Hunters think I don't have _that_ many.

Anyway I opened the door to cabin eight and found that that hunters and my mom were waiting. Percy stood awkwardly outside the door as my mom tackle hugged me.

"You're safe!" She gushed. "And covered in… soot?"

"It's a long story." I said.

"Okay well my chariot's outside we can go to Apollo's." She started.

"No it's fine I'll explain here. Oh can Percy come in?" I asked. She sighed and nodded. "It's okay she's not going to turn you into anything."

"Are you sure?" Percy asked.

"Yes I'm sure, you being who you are, she won't kill you." I said Percy seemed a little puzzled but warily stepped over the threshold as though he was afraid of getting blasted to bits.

"Okay well I'm alive so now what?" Percy asked.

"I'll make tea, and get you three something to eat, boys you'll have to find somewhere else to shower, Grace go on and shower." My mom said. Grace pulled a hunting tunic out of a drawer and ran into the bathroom. Percy and I ended up having to use the camp showers, which meant we nearly froze to death. Since I refused to shower anywhere near Percy he showered first.

Technically speaking the water ought to have been warm by now seeing as it had been six hours since the last shower but Percy said one of the pipes had burst and caused it to only run cold. Which was _perfect_.

On the slightly brighter side by the time we got back to my cabin mom had fixed us a nice hot meal and some tea. Normally I'm not a tea drinker, I'm more of a coffee guy but tea would work for now.

We relayed our tale and just as we were coming to a close Apollo burst in, Lily trailing somewhat behind him. Lilly was in her pajamas and looked somewhat tired, as though she had been woken very suddenly and given no time to anything but follow Apollo.

"Hi Shamrock." She yawned her auburn curls were messy and tangled.

"Morning Lilly." I smiled.

"How do I always seem to get dragged into your latest ventures?" She asked.

"Oh tell me about it." Grace said coming out of the bathroom, brushing her hair.

"Let me guess, he dragged you along and somehow got you all into life or death trouble?" Lilly asked.

"Just about, I spent a month in 1897." She said.

"Not fun I'm guessing?" Lilly asked.

"You have no idea." Grace said.

"Okay enough with the small talk. What happened to you three, how long were you there, and what did you screw up in the time line?" Apollo demanded.

"Calm down Uncle. We didn't screw anything up, we only set Ellis Island on fire." I said.

"You _what!_" Apollo barked.

"It was going to burn anyway!" I yelled standing up to defend myself.

"You don't know that!" He bellowed.

"Yes I do! In my history text book it clearly states that Ellis Island burned on June 14, 1897, we only lay down the chain of events for it to happen!" I yelled. Apollo sat down, as though taking this all in. He rubbed his head and looked at me.

"You give me such a headache." He informed me. "You are exactly like your mother; reckless and annoying."

"Hey!" My mom protested.

"So I've been told." I grumbled.

"Does anyone here feel like explaining why I am here?" Lilly asked. Apollo and Mom completely ignored her and continued arguing. "So can I leave?"

"No." Apollo snapped and returned to arguing.

"Can I at least sit down?" Lilly asked. I sighed, and led her over to my bed.

"You can sit there this might be a while." I said she growled and sat down on my bed. "You're in a bad mood."

"Yeah well I tend to be when I'm woken up at three thirty in the morning." She grumbled.

"Well I can see why. How's your blood-sucker?" I asked.

"Oh Renesmee, she's okay, just celebrated her eleventh birthday." She said.

"She was _ten_ when I saw her." I said.

"No she was eight." Lilly smiled, I decided it was better to drop the subject as to avoid further confusion. "How are things between you and Grace?"

"Oh we're fine." I said.

"That bad huh? She asked.

"What makes you think it's bad?" I asked.

"Your expression makes me think it's bad." She poked.

"Well yeah things aren't going to well, she uh," I dropped my voice to a whisper. "She, uh kissed me."

"Oh, well that will destroy a friendship, why don't you talk to her in the morning." She asked.

"Yeah I could do that, but it will be morning soon." I gave her a small smile.

"Shamrock." My mother said.

"Yes?"

"We need to talk."

"Ah yes but if you'd be kind enough to let me get some sleep, and then in the morning I wish to talk to Grace before we do anything." I requested.

"Um yes can't you just speak to Grace now?" Mother said.

"No, it's private." I said locking eyes with her, Grace blushed a bit and nodded. I sighed and Lilly stood up, as soon as she did so I pulled back the blankets.

"You can sleep here, I'll go to Zeus cabin." Thalia said getting of her bed and going out the. Lilly walked over and slipped in Thalia's bed. The hunters went into the bathroom and changed, then all slipped into their respective beds. Mother turned off the lights and climbed into her bed.

As tired as I was I didn't sleep at all that night, I lay awake the moonlight streaming into my window. For about an hour I could see Orion, he was in the sky and soon enough Scourpios would be up and summer would be upon us. As much as I hate the cold I love the winter, because then the moon is so clear and so bright.

I was 'born' in the winter so that could be part of it. I remember my fifth birthday, Apollo had a birthday 'party' he invited the current girlfriend and it was supposed to be 'fun' but I ended up being sent to bed at seven o'clock, and lying awake to the disturbing sounds they both made. It was mortifying, and I was scarred for life.

I rolled over and caught the sight of Grace's bright red hair. She was asleep and her hair seemed to be liquid fire in the moonlight. I almost stood up and went over to her bed, but just my luck she would wake up and that would be totally awkward. I decided it was best to not look at her and to pretend she wasn't there or that I didn't feel like I did towards her.

It was next to impossible to lie there completely still, I didn't know if my mother was awake or not but I didn't really want to find out. If she was awake she might just drug me or play me to sleep again. If she wasn't the last thing I wanted to see was an angry immortal. I had woken Apollo once by accident and he was not very happy about it. He had yelled at me until I fell asleep, which happened more often than I care to admit when Apollo talked.

Finally after what seemed to be ages the sun began to rise and I stood and went over to Grace's bed, she wasn't very happy about being woken but she got up and dressed, I had never changed out of the tunic I had been wearing.

We walked up past Zeus' fist to the edge of the forest, I could see the ocean out over the horizon, It was beautiful, but I was about to talk about a touchy subject…

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><p><strong>You may have noticed that I changed my pen name, I did that for a lot of reasons but don't worry about that. I will see you in the next and final chapter. <strong>

~To Thine Own Self Be True101


	6. Paint the Sky With Stars

Chapter 5

Paint the Sky With Stars

_Suddenly before my eyes, Hues of indigo arise, With them how my spirit sighs, Paint the sky with stars- **Paint The Sky With Stars, Enya**_

Shamrock

The morning was cold and clear, and it looked like there was a bright day ahead of us, if I would never have guessed just how bad things were going to get.

"Okay so, we need to talk." I said.

"Yeah Shamrock, we have a lot to talk about, you really ought to try to be more careful." She said. The early morning light shone on her hair making it look like it really was on fire, her green eyes were full of anxiety. I could tell the next hour would be one of the most difficult in my life.

"I agree with you on that we do need to try to be much more careful. We could also lecture Apollo on this." I agreed.

"We?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Yes we." I insisted.

"Do I have to remind you who started drop the Scythe of Time? Who started the fire?" She asked.

"Okay so those things _were_ my fault, but which of us freaked out at Ellis Island?" I poked.

"I had a logical reason, _you_ did not have any reason to set the island on _fire_." She said, she had a point, just because I didn't like Ellis Island didn't give me a reason to set it on fire, I did though. That was partially her fault to because I had been arguing with _her_ but I had to change topic before this went any further.

"Okay wait, before we go on we need to change the topic. This is not what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to talk to you about the kiss, what does it mean?" I asked, Grace looked away from me, as though she was ashamed of something.

"I don't know." She muttered looking at her feet.

"How can you not know?" I demanded, she remained silent for a few minutes before saying;

"It was mixed emotions, Shamrock. I'm sorry for causing any confusion."

"Confusion? God's Grace I think you caused more than _confusion_. You caused utter chaos of emotions!" I exclaimed. Before Grace could say anything else there was a huge column of bright pink smoke and a sickeningly beautiful woman was sitting next to Grace. Aphrodite.

"Hello hon." She said, I couldn't make up my mind about what she looked like seeing as she kept changing. One moment she looked like a blonde California girl, then next minute a what Apollo called, a 'Southern Belle' then, just for a moment she resembled Grace.

"Lady Aphrodite." Grace's voice was cold and full of loathing.

"Oh good one of them recognizes me!" She clapped her hands eagerly.

"What do you want?" Grace growled, clearly Grace wanted nothing more than to be able to get Aphrodite out of here as fast as she could, and to do that we had to cooperate.

"Well hon, I thought you two could use help. Love is a complicated thing, and you two are clueless." She shook her head sadly and looked at me.

"Hey!" Grace and I yelled at the same time.

"Well you are. Sham Honey," She started.

"Shamrock." I said.

"Oh whatever, but you are just as clueless as little Arty." Aphrodite said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well I know as well as you do Shamrock that you like Grace, and Grace, honey, as much as you deny it you have feelings for him too. Now this is my department and you have come to the right place." She blinked her long eyelashes.

"Um technically you came to us, and we don't really want your help." I pointed out.

"Well honey whether or not you want it you cannot deny you need me." She smiled, clearly not caring about personal preference. "Now let's talk about the kiss. Grace obviously kissed you, because you were just stunned. Now Grace, honey, why did you run away?"

"Because i-it was mixed emotions, none of this was real." She said, her pupils were dilated and her palms were sweaty, she was running her hands through her hair repeatedly. She was terrified of this.

"Now hon, we both know that's not entirely true, but Shamrock how does that make you feel?" Aphrodite turned to me.

"I don't know." I stated.

"Yes you do." She argued. "You have to know, it's your heart you will always know.

I scowled, I hate talking about my feelings, that's another thing other than the cold, peanut butter, and vampires, that is at the top of the list of things I hate. I didn't want to talk about how I felt with really anyone, much less Aphrodite, but this was one of those circumstances where you feel like you don't have much of a choice.

"I felt a whole mix of emotions. I can't pick many out." I said, willing my voice to go emotionless. I didn't really want to tell her any of this.

"Oh well then Grace how did you feel?" Aphrodite asked.

"It was a terrible mix of things." Grace mumbled.

"I get the feeling you are both only telling me half the truth." Aphrodite pouted. That was it, if she wasn't immortal I would have my sword at her throat right now.

"So?" We both snapped.

She feigned being hurt. "Well alright then if you don't want to talk about it then fine. Good bye." Aphrodite disappeared in another puff of pink smoke leaving us coughing behind her.

"She's going to make our lives Hades you know." Grace said after she finished coughing.

"Yeah well I've already got a list of Olympians that hate me, she's just one more to add." I shrugged.

"Shamrock it's a _bad_ thing to be on the wrong side of the gods, especially ones like Aphrodite, she already hates your mom, you really _don't_ need to be on her bad side." Grace groaned. "_I_ don't need to be on her bad side."

"I know that but oh well, I can't control it." I stood up and pulled Grace to her feet.

"Shamrock she is going to get angry with you!" Grace said.

"So?" I asked, but I knew she was right, I just wasn't going to admit it.

"Sham!" She screeched. "That's a _bad_ thing!"

"How so?" I said backing up a bit. "How is it bad? My life is already hell!"

"She can, she can make anything worse, all she had to do is convince the other gods, but now, Sham calm down and come forward." She beckoned. Come forward? Why? I didn't care I wasn't doing it though.

"Why! Grace my life has never been easy! The gods only make it worse!" I yelled backing up even farther, completely unaware about what I was about to do.

"Shamrock, I know that but come forward, please just a bit." She pleaded. What was her problem today?

"Grace you don't understand I can comprehend love!" I shouted, backing up even farther.

"Shamrock, it's difficult for you to comprehend these emotions. Please just come forward to me and we'll go back and talk about it!" Tears were welling up in her eyes now, and I didn't know why but I just kept backing up.

It was only when I hit the edge when I realized what she was talking about. There was a cliff there, and I had just found it. It was of course too late then I hadn't realized her motives, and I fell, I fell back and off the cliff face. Grace lunged for my hand but it was much too late.

They are right when they say your life flashes before your eyes as you are dying. I was forced to relive every moment of my short, and miserable life. Oddly enough though I saw things I didn't remember I saw Apollo leaving another infant, this one a girl, with Poseidon.

"This is Shamrock's sister, her name is Lilly I would raise them together but I can't." Apollo said, before I could comprehend what he had said the image changed to when I was three and had accidentally burned my hand on the stove, and Apollo told me not touch the stove again as he wrapped my hand and then sent me off to bed. I remembered that I had made it a point to touch the stove again and he started taking off the burners when nothing was on them.

I saw my first meeting with the hunters and my mom, I saw me making fun of them, then I saw Volterra, getting bitten by Jane, I saw how bad it would have been for any on looker, blood dripping from Jane's mouth and running down my shoulder. I saw my few days at home with the hunters, Grace changing the bandages, the wound was disgusting, it was green and the flesh around it had a greenish tint to it, like rotting flesh. I saw everything but one thing was slower than the others, the kiss, is seemed to linger longer than it had.

That wasn't the last thing I saw though, the last thing I saw was Grace's face, shocked, her green eyes full of terror, and with tears running down her face. The last thing I heard was her scream my name an horrible, heartbroken sound. Then I felt that familiar feeling of being pulled backwards, through a swirling vortex…

Grace

There was a flash of brilliant silver light, to bright too see through, but as the light died down she saw nothing, no body, no article of clothing, no sign that Shamrock had ever been there and for the second time in her life Grace was completely and utterly alone. Perhaps though this time was much worse, because she had seen him die…

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><p><strong>It's a known fact that most of the Greek myths end in bloody, unhappy deaths. Usually the hero or the hero's lover or family dies, the hero goes insane and then kills himself. Why should Shamrock's story be any different? He's a danger prone half-blood who has been lucky to make it this far, and maybe now it's time that his luck runs out. <strong>

**What does this mean will happen to Grace? Well as we know the lovers or friends of the hero's sometimes live happy lives, other times it's ****suicide, it really depends on the person. Grace has had a long hard life, her mom died, she dad went crazy, her brothers and sisters mostly died in a fire, then her dad assumed she was dead and took the other's back to Ireland. The end for them. Grace thought that Shamrock would be her happy ending, her hero. Clearly she was wrong. It's a shame too, just as Grace starts to trust him.**

**What does this mean for Artemis? Well Theseus' step dad threw himself off a cliff when he assumed that he was dead. She's immortal though I don't think that would work very well, but being her first child I believe she would be very distraught. **

**What will happen to Apollo? As much as Shamrock leads on that they fight they are actually pretty close, Apollo will be very lonely at the thought of his little Shamrock being gone. What does he have to come home too now? Nothing. The house will be empty and he can't even go visit Shamrock. It'll be sad.**

**What will happen to the hunt? They won't know what to think, they weren't best friend's with him or anything but her was still their lady's child so they are obliged to at least get along with him, his relationship with most of them was a rock and unstable one. As is most peoples relationship with the hunt. Very few people ever really get to know the hunt with out joining, so it is hard to say what they're point of view on things will be. **

**What happens to Sham? Well he fell off a cliff, but some people live through that, cliff divers do it all the time. What about that swirling vortex thing? Well by all means I encourage you to read on, I still have a few tricks up my hat (I don't wear many long sleeves so I can't say up my sleeves, but I do have a hat) **

**Does this mean it's over and done? Well if I encouraged you to read on do you really think it would be done? No neither do I so please read the rest of this. **

**Thanks to Sapphier for listening.**

**T****o Iris for caring about how this story has come even though we don't walk to school anymore**

**To Bella for getting me out of the house even if we only went to get lunch because I can't cook.**

**To Belle for reminding me that everyone needs a little fun in they're life even if it is being chased around at midnight**

**T****o Arabella for reminding me that it's not possible to write on coffee and adrenaline, at least not every day. **

**Thanks to you, the reader, for reading this far, because I get easily distracted.**

**Thanks to my friend Gabriela for giving me the idea below...**

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><p>New York 2001<p>

"Maddy, look at this." A boy with brown hair, and green eyes bent down over an auburn haired boy who lay unconscious on the bed. "Where did he come from?"

"How would I know?" The girl with fizzy red hair, brown eyes, glasses and freckles, The one who the boy called Maddy said. "He's on _your_ bed Liam. Hey Sal! Who'd this?"

"I don't know, " A girl with Carmel skin, Long dark hair, and brown eyes came into the room, Sal. "I was just eating with Bob when he detected a time portal, we walking into the back room and found him. He's alive, so I put him on Liam's bed."

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><p><strong>You didn't really think I'd kill him did you? ~ <strong>To Thine Own Self Be True101


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